Community of Practice is not a new concept. Cognitive anthropologists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger had already coined the term in 1991: «A Community Of Practice is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.»
In the age of Agile, this concept has become popular because it embraces the principles of self-organization and empowerment and promotes the knowledge sharing through the company, essential as companies become bigger and are faced with the need for alignment, especially concerning architecture and the use of technologies.
And now let’s dive into the real concept of CoP.
CoPs are not simple networks of people sharing something: they must have a common domain of interest and a common goal, such as achieving knowledge and expertise in a specific field.
Here at Imagicle, some of them are related to Software Craftmanship, User Experience, Security, and Agile Methodologies.
The identity of the COP will be defined according to the interests and goals of the people in the group, and members will be committed to acquiring shared expertise in the area and becoming a reference for others. The CoP will take charge of activities, develop new ways of dealing with issues (which often lead to innovation), engage in dialogue to share their skills, and learn from others.
Obviously, besides being a community with shared interests, a fundamental element of the COP is practice. Only discussing one particular topic is not enough; COP members will have to be practitioners who apply the things they learn through COP in their daily routine.
You may be wondering how to fit the CoPs into a company organized into many small Agile teams, but see, the concept of Community Of Practice is parallel to the work of the development team. Participation in CoPs is totally voluntary, and the effort to devote to it is assigned to the self-organization of teams and people.
Obviously, the way each member participates may vary. Some will join regularly and be super active; others will follow the discussions without ever taking the lead; others won’t participate at all until they touch on a topic that is of particular interest to them. Anyhow, all levels of participation must be welcomed within the community.
Just to give you some ideas on how to build a CoP, at Imagicle we decided to share knowledge and best practices through our virtual collaboration tools (eg Cisco Webex Teams or Dropbox) because we like to be able to exchange quickly and have an eye on what we are building day by day in a shared location. But it doesn’t really matter how you decide to implement your communities of practice: what makes a Cop successful is simply the ability to bring value and enthusiasm to its components. A good example could be the co-creation of guidelines regarding the user experience or software architecture, or a shared vision of what software quality means.
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