The boundaries of a Community of Practice (CoP) have changed significantly because of changes in organizations and the nature of the work they do. Organizations have become more distributed across geography and across industries. Relationships between people inside an organization and those previously considered outside (customers, suppliers, managers of collaborating organizations, other stakeholders) are becoming more important. In addition, organizations have discovered the value of collaborative work due to the new emphasis on Knowledge Management - harvesting the learning of the experience of members of the organization so that it is available to the whole organization. This chapter offers a practical toolkit of best practices, tips and examples from the authors? work taining leaders to launch and sustain a virtual CoP including tips for chartering the community, defining roles, and creating the culture that will sustain the community over time.

This chapter looks at the work of a team of remote workers and how they have developed into a Community of Practice (CoP). It explores the roles that technology and communication methods have on the formation and development of the community. In telling the story of the progression from a team of individuals to a CoP, the chapter provides a practical guide to others wishing to do the same. Two aspects of the work of the team are considered in depth: 1) Building Communication Systems across a Distributed CoP 2) Building commitment, ownership, engagement and focus in a Distributed CoP The team and community on which the chapter is based is one of some 20 people working remotely for Ultralab, a learning, technology and research centre in Chelmsford UK. The work of the team is online facilitation for the National College of School Leadership (NCSL). The team meet together approximately four times a year, using an online community space, the Facilitators? Forum, as their day-to-day working space.

Communities of Practice (CoPs) are seen as a primary vehicle for knowledge sharing across large and disparate organizations. It is therefore expected that technology will play a critical role in enabling global CoPs. The usefulness of information technlogies (IT) to support CoP activity in two large, but quite different, global organizations is analysed and common themes developed. BHP Billiton is one of the world?s largest diversified resources company, with a strong industrial heritage and a mix of blue and white collar workers and levels of IT literacy. CSC is one the world?s leading IT service providers, with a highly IT literate staff and a relatively sophisticated IT support environment. Both organizations could be considered early adopters of the CoP concept. This chapter tracks their evolution and the lessons learned along the way.

The authors have both been involved as designers, producers and facilitators of CPsquare?s Foundations of Communities of Practice Workshop (www.cpsquare.com). Through that ongoing exposure to learning and leading in Communities of Practice (CoPs), they became convinced that stories about CoPs play a crucial role in motivation and learning for community leaders. Within communities, the swapping of stories is a means by which local theories of cause and effect are developed and contextualized. These stories provide powerful ways of invoking context, of framing choices and actions and of constructing identity (Bruner, 2002). From the context of a Community of Practice (CoP) concerned with the cultivation of CoPs, (i.e., the Foundations workshop) there is strong anecdotal evidence that stories are of equal value to practitioners and researchers alike. As part of an extended research activity, and parallel to this growing conviction about stories, Stuckey analysed the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) raised over six iterations of the workshop. The ten most frequently asked questions became the basis of semi-structured interviews held with the developers and managers of the communities described in this chapter. The chapter presents the essence of seven community cases and is intended as an enticement to explore the full case descriptions and community stories (which are beyond the limitations of this printed publication) at http://www.cpsquare.org/cases/

This chapter is about the question of what creates and sustains viability in Communities of Practice (CoPs) embedded in an organizational context. Experience with successful CoPs at Siemens AG has shown that even though most of them differ greatly from each other in many aspects, they all share five common factors that are necessary for the viability of a CoP. These five factors are introduced in the following pages. They represent an approach that can be used to analyse and improve CoPs that do not seem to be viable and as a guide for CoP members and moderators to maintain viability in their own CoPs.

This chapter presents a case study of the creation and evolution of a fee-based, multi-company Community of Practice (CoP) for Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in the San Francisco Bay Area over a six-year period. It describes the principles, processes and practices required to form and maintain a trust-based, face-to face, learning organization where members share accumulated knowledge. Additionally, it states some of the individual, collective and Information Technology industry benefits and results that have accrued from member participation in the CIO Community of Practice. The authors hope that the description of this CoP will foster the same sense of excitement for would-be practitioners that they feel.

Most discussions of Communities of Practice (CoP) place them in the context of a primarily internal-to-the-organization approach to managing knowledge. The construct, however, has application across the entire value chain of an organization, including the domain of a company?s customers. This article explores the strategic value of building Customer Communities of Practice (CCoPs), learning networks among customers of a company whose win-win value proposition helps customers gain valuable insights from other peers while also providing the sponsoring company with a means to further innovation, loyalty and deeper insights into the markets they serve. The analysis suggsts three types of CCoPs, including business to consumer, business to business, and communities of channel distributors. Case studies of each are presented and an especially extensive treatment is offered of the second type based on the author?s experience of building a CCoP for his own software company. The discussion concludes with several lessons learned and practical guidelines for building successful CCoPs in any industry.

This chapter concentrates on Communities of Practice (CoPs) in the volunteer organization the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. It argues that overlapping CoPs throughout the organization are needed to deal with a variety of unstructured practices at sea. In addition, altruism and trust are vital elements for sharing and creating knowledge among volunteers in the organization. The author hopes this chapter will provide a practical understanding of CoPs. He also hopes the discussion of a volunteer organization will bring some new insights into the concept of CoPs.

Managing knowledge in large organizations is a challenge in itself. Modern views on Knowledge Management (KM) focus not only on finding ways to capture and distribute corporate knowledge but also provide ways through which knowledge can be shared, discussed and created. Different types of organizations have different approaches to KM. From general descriptions of these approaches, parallels to the Dutch police will be presented. This chapter discusses how KM within the Dutch police is an integral part of the organization and how explicit and tacit knowledge is shared to create new corporate knowledge. The authors present examples of how CoPs within the Dutch police play a role in both sustaining and developing their own practice, and how these communities are crucial to the learning organization.

This chapter explores the influence that rich media has on learning in a Community of Practice (CoP) at a large multi-billion dollar infrastructure project, the bridge between Sweden and Denmark. The findings show that an increase in the number of deviations from customer requirement was associated with an organizational change that impeded the community from communicating through face-to-face interaction. In turn, it is suggested that the CoP studied could not reduce equivocality through collaborative narratives because of the absence of rich media. Thus it is argued that rich media are essential for effective learning in Communities of Practice (CoPs). The author hopes that the understanding of how communication influences learning will assist managers, through providing an understanding of the central role that communication has on learning, and researchers, through introducing the concept of equivocality and media richness into the domain of CoPs.