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Once the Community of Practice is initiated, the organization needs to promote and nurture the COP’s growth. Self-directed teams vote with their feet, and if the COP doesn’t provide value, attendance will quickly diminish or team members will suddenly become “too busy to participate”. Since you don’t want your COP to go immediately from the “potential” stage to the “memorable” stage, the following tips will help develop and grow the community of practice. Growth Tip 1: Ensure the organization legitimizes participation in the COP The COP sponsor is critical in championing the self-forming organization and ensuring the larger organization supports the COP by recognizing the effort required to develop and build a community of practice. The sponsor should encourage managers to allow their team members to participate in the COP and recognize the value these communities of practice provide to the organization. We all have work to do; however, spending an additional hour out of the work week on the COP is a well-invested hour to help move the organization’s project management maturity forward. Initiating and building a community of practice is an exercise in organizational change management. Sufficient time and visibility needs to be provided to recognize the benefits of a community of practice and provide opportunities to highlight how participation in a community of practice can benefit the overall organization. The organization and the community of practice evolve as the organization starts to refer to the community of practice as its own entity and seeks advice from its membership. Growth Tip 2: Demonstrate how knowledge gained in the COP is linked to the organization’s own business strategy A community of practice needs to demonstrate its strategic value to an organization’s own business strategy. In a project organization, a common strategy is to enable and support the business process through a series of tactical and strategic projects. Project organizations expect timely delivery of projects that meet or exceed business customer expectations and are executed at or below the original budget. The COP can demonstrate its strategic value to the organizational strategy by sharing its lessons learned, tactical tips and reusable tools to apply project management principles across the organization. As more COP members apply useful tools and project techniques consistently, project delivery should become more consistent and ideally improve the organization’s project management competency. If the COP fails to demonstrate is strategic alignment to the organization’s strategy and objectives, senior management will not support or promote it. I’ve worked within several different communities of practice organizations at different stages in development. In one organization, the organization valued employee development, job families and continual learning. Every employee belonged to various job families who held their own community of practice to promote learning in their own discipline. In another company, the community of practice struggled to achieve its identity due to the constant shift in business objectives, organizational instability and an understaffed resource pool. It is difficult to justify strategic value or build an effective COP when daily activities are not adequately supported. Growth Tip 3: Incorporate reward and recognition into the COP and the organization culture The organization’s culture and environment can influence the growth and participation within a COP. If senior management doesn’t recognize the COP, value membership’s participation in sharing lessons learned or incorporate reward systems, the growth of a COP will be inhibited. In one organization, achieving PMP certification was not well recognized or valued in the organization. With a change in leadership and incorporating reward and recognition into the performance evaluation process, the organization started focusing on the importance of certification and having a common language that all project managers understood. The culture quickly shifted and managers who previously had a hands-off approach to project management technique were suddenly reciting the importance of a well-defined WBS, OBS and creating a baselined project schedule. The same behavior is found in promoting and fostering a community of practice. The employee evaluation process should incorporate the extracurricular activities project managers pursue to move the organization forward. This can be difficult when project managers are faced with project delivery, late milestones or difficult suppliers. However, by identifying a balance between work priorities and employee development--and establishing reward and recognition for participation--a community of practice has a better chance to grow and establish a presence within the organization.
Growth Tip 3: Ask Senior Management to provide resources for the COP The community of practice is a self-directed team concept that can still benefit from internal and external resources to improve its development. As with any business meeting, a COP will need meeting facilities, communication support and an artifact repository to share files and information. Depending on the COP’s scope, additional experts from external PM organizations or guest speakers may be invited to present at a COP meeting. These activities typically require a small budget to secure a meeting room, pay guest speakers or provide refreshments/lunch for participants. Minor financial resources are not the only type of support needed from senior management. By working with the COP, senior managers can also help form a leadership team to guide the COP development. This team should be comprised of COP leaders and other management representing different areas of the organization. By establishing a steering committee supported by senior management, the COP can effectively obtain guidance and resources when needed. The COP will also have the sponsorship and visibility to highlight how the COP activities align the organization’s business strategy. Participation from senior leaders also helps the community of practice include representation from all organizations and help create relationships with other community of practices within the company. One example is having a senior leader from the enterprise project management office participate in the COP steering committee. Some COP teams may be leery having a governance organization participate in grass-root level COPs; however, the enterprise project management office can best advise the COP on how their activities link to the strategic projects and programs within the company. By obtaining support and resources from senior management, it helps to eliminate barriers to participation and helps influence the organization’s learning culture. By establishing a steering committee that involves senior leadership, the community of practice can clearly see how the organization values the work and benefits of a community of practice. Implementing a COP is an exercise in change management and just like any project it requires sponsorship, alignment to strategic goals and objectives and resources to succeed.
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