Learning to collaborate and collaborating to learn, both keep me wondering about best practices in building communities of practice (CoP). Whether in academia or the corporate sector, collaborations have become an essential element to the success of a project.

Is it easy to bring a community together? Perhaps yes, with suitable inspiration and the right motivations. Is it easy to sustain the CoP? There’s a lot of planning and team building that goes onto sustaining the initial efforts, but more so to periodically reflect on the goals and purpose of the CoP, and to even recalibrate how these goals are being achieved.

I chanced upon this wonderful guide to building a CoP that appropriately describes its lifecycle as Inquire, Design, Prototype, Launch, Grow, Sustain. https://www.msfhr.org/sites/default/files/Community_of_practice_guide.pdf

The members of the CoP and their shared goals are the heart of the collaboration. Diversity of perspective from each member, and mixed strategy to achieve the shared goals aid in the co-creation of knowledge, skills and improved attitudes. The dynamism of working together, be it in-person, online, or in hybrid modes also means that CoPs evolve, grow, and perhaps even collapse and rise again in a new more purposeful form. They are never static, and shouldn’t be.