A Framework for Designing and Implementing CoPs
APQC
has developed an organizing framework for an enterprise-wide approach to
communities. This framework provides best practices across the entire CoP life
cycle, from planning and positioning a community program to designing,
launching, and sustaining effective communities.
Strategic Positioning
Strategic positioning
for communities revolves around three elements essential to a successful
enterprise-
APQC
has found that the most effective communities are woven deeply into the fabric
of the organization: functionally, by discipline, and by strategic issue. Most
firms have established and positioned a formal core KM or community "center of
excellence" with enterprise-wide scope whose charter is to promote CoP consistency,
health, and economies of scale. In addition, APQC has found that business units
and functions are assuming a major role in funding communities.
CoP Planning
Sometimes
preceding strategic positioning is specific CoP planning, which builds the
relationships, assessments, and business case for communities. Planning is also
instrumental in engaging IT and other stakeholders in the process. Best-practice
organizations use an explicit link to business strategy as a key criterion for
determining which communities to support. Innovation--an important business
objective for most companies--is also used as a criterion for establishing
communities. Although creating innovation solutions or service lines is a key
function of many communities, there is still a strong focus on sharing best
practices, producing and refining documentation, and capturing lessons learned.
Design and Launch
The
tools and methods for successfully designing and launching CoPs have become robust
and repeatable. The roles of the community leaders and coordinators are more
defined and more explicitly supported with training and mentoring.
Just
as organizations have gone global, so have their communities. This means that technological,
language, and cultural differences may need to be addressed.
Sustain and Evolve
Processes
for sustaining and evolving communities have become robust, repeatable,
efficient, and effective. Best-practice organizations recommend assessing
community alignment with business and CoP goals annually. Most leading firms do
not rely solely on automated tools for community metrics. Instead, they go to
the source--the people--to determine what works, what doesn't, and what should be
changed; they then calibrate this qualitative data with activity measurements
from the system. APQC recommends using a combination of member satisfaction
measures, knowledge-sharing activity measures, process measures, and business
outcomes to assess the value of investments in communities.
Best-practice
organizations use their measurement systems and tools to help manage the
ongoing processes of communities. By watching leading indicators such as
content "freshness," member participation, and "hits" on community Web pages,
the CoP support groups can intervene quickly when problems arise. Finally,
these groups also use their measurement tools and health assessments to
determine when a CoP has run its natural course and warrants decommissioning.