Emily Webber - Building successful communities of practice:

Discuss with your neighbour:

What value do you get from meeting other people that do the same job as you?

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Building Successful Communities of Practice Discover How Connecting People Makes Better Organisations

Agile Cymru 2016 Emily Webber @ewebber emilywebber.co.uk / tacitlondon.com

“…groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” Wenger-Trayner

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Community of Practice

Hello. I’m Emily Webber (and I have a habit)

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What brings you here?

“Absence of support is taken as a sign of mass rejection” Matthew D. Lieberman

Social: Why our brains are wired to connect

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sink or swim

Photo by Elaine with G

rey Cats

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Silos are killing your organisation

Photo by joinash

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<homogenous group name> are rubbish at ….

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Who has silos in their organisation?

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PROGRAMMEPROGRAMME

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PROGRAMME

CO

MM

UN

ITY

OF

PR

AC

TIC

E

How you do it

Wh

at

yo

u d

o

PROGRAMME

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Photo by Meg Cheng

Connecting people through communities of practice will help break down silos and make your organisation better

Training courses are not helping you learn

Photo by Emory M

aiden

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“Knowledge is something you buy with the money. Wisdom is something you acquire by doing it” Taiichi Ohno

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Who is here on their training budget?

Kolb’s Learning Styles Model

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“Copying other people’s successes, when combined with individual learning, is dramatically better than individual learning alone.” Alex “Sandy” Pentland

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Photo by clemsonunivlibrary

By learning and practicing together members of communities of practice get better at what they do (faster)

You’re letting your organisational knowledge exit

Photo by Lionel Martinez

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Who left their last job within 5 years?

People don’t stay in jobs for life, they move around on average every 4.4 years

- Forbes

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When people leave they take parts of your organisational brain

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The Knowledge Iceberg

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The Knowledge Iceberg

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Photo by Photo by an1uk

Communities of practice create the right conditions to help retain tacit knowledge

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from silos

to sharing knowledge

to solving shared problems

to using the collective knowledge of the community to create better practices

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Illustration by Tenso Graphics

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Illustration by Tenso Graphics

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Illustration by Tenso Graphics

“Teams of people have a collective intelligence that is independent of individual intelligence and greater than individual intelligence.” Alex “Sandy” Pentland

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Photo by Anders Sandberg

By solving problems together communities of practice use their collective knowledge to create better practices

Your staff are demotivated because they’re unhappy

Photo by Stephen Holt

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“Happier workers… were 12% more productive. Unhappier workers were 10% less productive” ‘Happiness and Productivity’ by Andrew J Oswald, Eugenio Proto and Daniel Sgroi

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Has anyone left an organisation because felt unsupported?

We are wired to connect with other people

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What motivates us

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Dan Pink, D

rive

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Photo by Emily W

ebber

Communities of practice will give people the emotional support they need and motivate them through mastery of their craft

Photo by Sacks08

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Photo by Amancay M

aahs

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Tips for successful communities of practice5

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Photo by J Mark D

odds

Don’t underestimate the time and effort you need to put in to make them work

1

Adapted from Cultivating Communities of Practice - Wenger, McDermott and Snyder

Community maturity stages

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ENER

GY

AND

VIS

IBIL

ITY

POTENTIAL

FORMING

MATURING

SELF-SUSTAINING

input needed

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Photo by Angelo Amboldi

At some point you will need support from your organisation

2

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Photo by Boston Public Library

You won’t get the best results without a sense of community

3

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Photo by Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay

Membership & Safety

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Photo by Ryan Jesse

Influence (both ways)

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Photo by Alper Çuğun

Fulfilment of needs

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Photo by JonathanEmotional connection

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Photo by Meg Cheng

Not everyone will want to join in and that’s ok

4

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Photo by Ryan Roberts

Don’t become your own silo and look for ways to share with other communities

5

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Building Successful Communities of Practice

Discover How Connecting People Makes Better Organisations

tacit.pub/tacitbooks

Thank you.

Emily Webber @ewebber emilywebber.co.uk / tacitlondon.com