User:Tonygrimaud/seven

Seven principles for cultivating communities of practice

by Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder

(this article is a work in progress)

These design principles are not hard and fast rules. They are an understanding of how elements of design work together, revealing the thinking behind a design. Having clear design principles makes it possible to be more flexible and improvisational.

1. Design for evolution.

Because communities of practice are organic, designing them is more a matter of shepherding their evolution rather than creating them from scratch. Design elements should be catalysts for a community's natural evolution. As they develop, communities usually build on preexisting personal networks. The dynamic nature of communities is key to their evolution. As the community grows, new members bring new interests and may pull the focus of the community in different directions. Changes in the organization influence the relative importance of the community and place new demands on it. Community design is much more like life-long learning than traditional organization design. The key to designing for evolution is to combine design elements in a way that catalyzes community development.

2. Open a dialogue between inside and outside perspectives.

Good community design requires an insider's perspective to lead the discovery of what the community is about. However, effective community design is built on the collective experience of community members. Only an insider can appreciate the issues at the heart of the domain, the knowledge that is important to share, the challenges their field faces, and the latent potential in emerging ideas and techniques. Only an insider can know who the real players are and their relationships. This requires more than community "input." It requires a deep understanding of community issues. Good community design requires an understanding of the community's potential to develop and steward knowledge, but it often takes an outside perspective to help members see the possibilities. Because intentional communities are new for most organizations, members often have a hard time imagining how a more developed community could improve upon their current personal networks or help them leverage dormant capabilities. Good community design brings information from outside the community into the dialogue about what the community could achieve. Sometimes this involves educating community members about the role of communities in other organizations. It might mean bringing an "outsider" into a dialogue with the community leader and core members as they design the community. As a result of this dialogue, the people who understand the issues inside the community and have legitimacy within it are also able to see new possibilities and can effectively act as agents of change. 7 The well-connected leader of a new community on emerging technology was concerned about how to develop the community when many of the "prima donnas" of the industry were outside his company. When he saw how a similar community in another organization was structured to involve outside experts in multiple ways, he started rethinking the potential structure of his own community. He realized that the key issues in his community were less about technology and more about the business issues involved in developing the technology. This understanding of the business perspective of the other community gave him a sharper sense of the strategic potential of his own.

3. Invite different levels of participation.

A good community invites many different levels of participation. A community of practice is very similar to the variety of activities one finds on a typical day in a town centre; people walking hurriedly to work, friends meeting for a casual stroll down the high street, lone people doing their shopping, couples chatting at an outdoor cafe, a crowd watching a street performer, while other people are on the periphery, watching the action from the windows above the street. People participate in communities for different reasons—some because the community directly provides value, some for the personal connection, and others for the opportunity to improve their skills.

It was believed that we should encourage all community members to participate equally. But because people have different levels of interest in the community, this expectation is unrealistic.

Alive communities, whether planned or spontaneous, have a "coordinator" who organizes events and connects community. But others in the community also take on leadership roles. There are normally three main levels of community participation;

1. A small core group of people who actively participate in discussions, even debates, in the public community forum. They often take on community projects, identify topics for the community to address, and move the community along its learning agenda. This group is the heart of the community. As the community matures, this core group takes on much of the community's leadership, its members becoming auxiliaries to the community coordinator. But this group is usually rather small, only 10 to 15 percent of the whole community.

2. At the next level is the active group. These members attend meetings regularly and participate occasionally in the community forums, but without the regularity or intensity of the core group. The active group is also quite small, another 15 to 20 percent of the community.

3. A large portion of community members are peripheral and rarely participate. Instead, they keep to the sidelines, watching the interaction of the core and active members. Some remain peripheral because they feel that their observations are not appropriate for the whole or carry no authority. Others do not have the time to contribute more actively. In a traditional meeting or team we would discourage such half-hearted involvement, but these peripheral activities are an essential dimension of communities of practice. Indeed, the people on the sidelines often are not as passive as they seem. Like people sitting at a cafe watching the activity on the street, they gain their own insights from the discussions and put them to good use. They may have private conversations about the issues being discussed in the public forum. In their own way, they are learning a lot.

Finally, outside these three main levels are people surrounding the community who are not members but who have an interest in the community. Community members move through these levels: a) Core members often join the sideline as the topic of the community shifts. b) Active members may be deeply engaged for a month or two, then disengage. Peripheral members drift into the center as their interests are stirred.

Because the boundaries of a community are fluid, even those outside the community can become quite involved for a time, as the focus of the community shifts to their areas of interest and expertise.

The key to good community participation and a healthy degree of movement between levels is to design community activities that allow participants at all levels to feel like full members. Rather than force participation, successful communities "build benches" for those on the sidelines. They make opportunities for semiprivate interaction, whether through private discussion rooms on the community's Web site, at a community event, or in a one-on-one conversation. This keeps the peripheral members connected. At the same time, communities create opportunities for active members to take limited leadership roles, such as leading a development project that requires a minimal time commitment. To draw members into more active participation, successful communities build a fire in the center of the community that will draw people to its heat.

4. Develop both public and private community spaces.

5. Focus on value.

6. Combine familiarity and excitement.

7. Create a rhythm for the community.