## Highlights Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis. — location: 178 ^ref-52746 --- Communities of practice are not a new idea. They were our first knowledge-based social structures, back when we lived in caves and gathered around the fire to discuss strategies for cornering prey, the shape of arrowheads, or which roots were edible. — location: 194 ^ref-44813 --- Every organization and industry has its own history of practice-based communities, whether formally recognized or not. Why else are the surviving U.S. automakers all based in Detroit? What explains the high-tech fertility of Silicon Valley? And why can’t you buy a world-class flute outside of three small manufacturers based in Boston? — location: 199 ^ref-9740 --- At the same time that the increasing complexity of knowledge requires greater specialization and collaboration, the half-life of knowledge is getting shorter. Without communities focused on critical areas, it is difficult to keep up with the rapid pace of change. — location: 213 ^ref-29663 --- One company found that employees belonging to world-class communities of practice exploring cutting-edge issues were much more likely to stick around. — location: 228 ^ref-36074 --- Early attempts at knowledge management, however, were beholden to their origin in information technology (IT) departments. They tended to confuse knowledge and information. Building the system alone devoured resources, but it turned out to be even more difficult to motivate people to use these early knowledge bases. — location: 244 ^ref-32387 --- Communities of practice do not reduce knowledge to an object. They make it an integral part of their activities and interactions, and they serve as a living repository for that knowledge. — location: 263 ^ref-55620 --- Controversy is part of what makes a community vital, effective, and productive. — location: 287 ^ref-62605 --- Cultivation is an apt analogy. A plant does its own growing, whether its seed was carefully planted or blown into place by the wind. You cannot pull the stem, leaves, or petals to make a plant grow faster or taller. Wenger 001-022 c01 2nd 11/14/01 5:20 PM Page 13 Communities of Practice and Their Value to Organizations 13 However, you can do much to encourage healthy plants: till the soil, ensure they have enough nutrients, supply water, secure the right amount of sun exposure, and protect them from pests and weeds.There are also a few things we know not to do, like pulling up a plant to check if it has good roots. — location: 322 ^ref-21016 --- The process has to be one of negotiation. You cannot act unilaterally. With a team of employees you can choose the goal, because you hired them to meet that goal. But with a community, your power is always mediated by the community’s own pursuit of its interest. — location: 343 ^ref-64467 --- Articulating the value of communities in terms of their tangible effects on performance provides them with the legitimacy they need to steward knowledge effectively. But it is still important to remember that some of their greatest value lies in intangible outcomes, such as the relationships they build among people, the sense of belonging they create, the spirit of inquiry they generate, and the professional confidence and identity they confer to their members. — location: 375 ^ref-50895 --- It provides new degrees of freedom for designing organizations. Managers can design formal structures to focus on accountability for customer and business results, while relying more heavily on informal structures such as communities of practice to address issues related to knowledge, competence, and innovation. — location: 458 ^ref-28563 --- In an organization that is constantly changing, employees may not know who their boss is going to be tomorrow, which country they will be sent to, or which team they will join. But they know that they will still belong to their community of colleagues. — location: 469 ^ref-15902 --- Despite the variety of forms that communities of practice take, they all share a basic structure. A community of practice is a unique combination of three fundamental elements: a domain of knowledge, which defines a set of issues; a community of people who care about this domain; and the shared practice that they are developing to be effective in their domain. — location: 560 ^ref-51159 --- Nothing says communities of practice must be purely spontaneous. In the end, however, the success of the community will depend on the energy that the community itself generates, not on an external mandate. — location: 720 ^ref-23626 --- In good communities strong bonds withstand disagreement, and members can even use conflict as a way to deepen their relationships and their learning. — location: 741 ^ref-28598 --- Through its practice—its concepts, symbols, and analytic methods—the community operates as a living curriculum. — location: 750 ^ref-16033 --- Defining domain, community, and practice also clarifies the definition of communities of practice as a social structure distinct from other types. In — location: 799 ^ref-49102 --- How do you design for aliveness? Certainly you cannot contrive or dictate it. You cannot design it in the traditional sense of specifying a structure or process and then implementing it. Still, aliveness does not always happen automatically. Many natural communities never grow beyond a network of friends because they fail to attract enough participants. Many intentional communities fall apart soon after their initial launch because they don’t have enough energy to sustain themselves. — location: 954 ^ref-40208 --- From our experience we have derived seven principles: 1. Design for evolution. 2. Open a dialogue between inside and outside perspectives. 3. Invite different levels of participation. 4. Develop both public and private community spaces. 5. Focus on value. 6. Combine familiarity and excitement. 7. Create a rhythm for the community. — location: 975 ^ref-48426 --- We used to think 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. — location: 1048 ^ref-14554 --- 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. — location: 1077 ^ref-36525 --- As we’ve emphasized before, communities are much more than their calendar of events. The heart of a community is the web of relationships among community members, and much of the day-to-day occurs in one-on-one exchanges. Thus, a common mistake in community design is to focus too much on public events. — location: 1094 ^ref-50079 --- Although people often complain about the difficulty of assessing community Wenger 049-064 c03 3rd 11/14/01 5:22 PM Page 61 Seven Principles for Cultivating Communities of Practice 61 value, such early discussions greatly help community members as well as potential members and other stakeholders understand the real impact of the community. — location: 1133 ^ref-1777 --- Lively communities combine both familiar and exciting events so community members can develop the relationships they need to be well connected as well as generate the excitement they need to be fully engaged. Routine activities provide the stability for relationship-building connections; exciting events provide a sense of common adventure. — location: 1154 ^ref-31413 --- The organic nature of communities of practice challenges us to design these elements with a light hand, with an appreciation that the idea is to create liveliness, not manufacture a predetermined outcome. — location: 1187 ^ref-48088 --- Rather than focusing on comprehensiveness and fit, community design concentrates on energizing participation. Rather than designing finished structures, it uses design as a catalyst for community growth and development. — location: 1190 ^ref-56173 --- As the community begins, the key domain issue it faces is defining the scope of the domain in a way that elicits the heart-felt interests of members and aligns with important issues for the organization as a whole. — location: 1322 ^ref-64666 --- If the community does not build on current networks, it risks losing credibility with, or even alienating, these important potential members. — location: 1339 ^ref-36359 --- Focus on aspects of the domain community members will be passionate about. This assures that the community will be attractive enough to members to grow and develop. — location: 1396 ^ref-62555 --- Define the scope wide enough to bring in new people and new ideas, but narrow enough that most members will be interested in the topics discussed. — location: 1397 ^ref-12210 --- • The key domain issue of the coalescing stage is to establish the value of sharing knowledge about that domain. • The key community issue is to develop relationships and sufficient trust to discuss genuinely sticky practice problems. — location: 1521 ^ref-34259 --- during the coalescing stage, building membership is actually much less important than developing the core group. It is through the collaboration of the core group that the community discovers its value; making connections between core group members is the most important networking the coordinator can do. — location: 1632 ^ref-33484 ---