The Effectiveness of Communities of Practice; From Anecdotes to Evidence
Thursday, May 1 | 2:45 pm
Presenter: Carol Csanda, director, knowledge management, State Farm Insurance
After three years in the knowledge management discipline, State Farm Insurance has completed two research studies aimed at soliciting feedback from community members using both empirical and open-ended questions.
The first study was completed in 2004, and the second study is underway with a broader sample. State Farm is using the results of these studies to learn what motivates people to share and to provide focused training for community leaders.
There have been many anecdotal stories regarding the success of communities of practice; this presentation will wrap concrete evidence around an explanation of how communities can contribute to enriching personal and group performance.
Carol Csanda has enjoyed
a 30-year career with State Farm Insurance Companies and is currently the
Director for Knowledge Management in the Strategic Resources Department.
Carol spent 16 years in
claims and operations management in
At the Corporate Office
since 1994, she has served in a variety of executive and leadership positions
with a focus on operations, training, and technology.
In her current role as Director of Knowledge Management, Carol is delivering an
enterprise- wide Knowledge Management initiative focused on collaboration, the
acceleration of best practices, and the leveraging of internal organizational
knowledge. She has completed research work focused on learning about what
motivates people to share and what makes Communities of Practice
effective.
Carol is an active member of the Conference Board's Learning and Knowledge
Management Council, participates in several industry communities and has been a
speaker at past APQC Conferences. Carol has completed her B.S. from
I thought this presentation was excellent. It provided plenty of ideas with regards to soliciting feedback on communities. I learned a lot by attending! Thanks Carol!
Carol did a great job in reminding us that technology is only an enabler. We can get caught up in using the latest and greatest tools, but our organizations are unable to catch up. In my organization, we're rolling out our communities of practice, and they are finally getting their legs. Now we're at the stage where we want to gather some feedback and establish some measurements, so I will take some of the examples that State Farm has done, especially the use of surveys and determining the correlations and causations, back with me.