1.
Measuring the value
of the communities
Schneider Electric
case study
16 April 2019
Louis-Pierre Guillaume
Founder & CEO
Former Director of KM Office, Schneider Electric
SIKM leaders

2.
Louis-Pierre (LP) GUILLAUME
• Consultant | Speaker | Knowledge Management |
Communities | Collaboration
• Support collaborative innovation, foster personal
development and optimize collective efficiency,
through Knowledge Management.
• Former Director of the Knowledge Management
Office at Schneider Electric | Former Director of
Know-How at Tereos
• Vice-President of , association of KM leaders in
France
|2.

3.
Table of content
1. Two little stories to set the stage
2. What lessons can we learn
3. How to measure value? Three levels
4. Why did Schneider Electric measured CoP value
5. How Schneider Electric did it
6. The benefit of the measurement of value
|3.

4.
|4.
Sarah’s story
• Sarah leads the Quality Community, with
about a hundred members scattered over
different sites.
• Sarah spends about 20% of her time
leading her community.
• Her manager asks her to demonstrate the
value of the CoP for the business, to justify
her time spent.
• Sarah provides her with statistics. CoP has
reached its cruising speed
• Her manager is not convinced by the value
of the stats, neither is the sponsor.
• They believe that since the community
works, it has less need for Sarah.
• Six months later, members are less and
less active and the statistics are getting
worse.

5.
|5.
Alice ’s story
• Alice leads her company's knowledge
management program
• She supervises the leaders of twenty
communities of practice.
• Challenged on his budget, her manager
asked her to demonstrate the value of
the communities of practice program.
• Alice then sends a survey to the
community leaders.
• Her manager is not convinced by the
survey, because he claims the answers
are biased.
• No tangible evidence.
• Alice feels that her position is
weakening.

6.
|6.
• The statistics of a tool do not
predict the value of the
communities that uses it.
• A Director or VP becomes a
sponsor of a community of practice
(CoP) if he/she perceives a business
interest.
• The leader of a community of
practice must ensure that the
community's objectives and
expected benefits are achieved.
• A manager will give time to lead a
CoP to someone on his team only if
he/she perceives the value of the
community.
• Measuring the value of a
community program requires
interviewing community members.
Lessons learned

7.
Show me the value of your community
1. Adoption & participation
• Platform measurements
• Number of attendees at events
2. Engagement /satisfaction
• Voice of the members
• Active Community Label
3. Efficiency
• Success stories with benefits
• The value realized
ROE* instead of ROI ROE*: return on engagement
|7.

8.
Schneider Electric
Case Study
|8.

9.
Schneider Electric, the global specialist in
energy management and automation
Balanced Geographies – FY 2017 revenuesDiversified End Markets – FY 2017 revenues
27%
North
America
18%
Rest of
World
27%
Western Europe
28%
Asia Pacific
€25 billion
FY 2017 revenues
~145,000
people in 100+
countries
~5%
of revenues devoted
to R&D
Utilities &
Infrastructure
Industrial
& Machines
Data Centers
& Networks
Non-residential &
Residential Buildings
21% 21%15%43%
|9.

10.
Initialisation of the Community Program in 2011
|10.

11.
2 communities
July 2012
37 communities
November 2012
69 communities
July 2013
Today, 180
communities
120 communities
September 2014
Communities@Work ramp-up and Social Network ramp-up
Communities@Work Program Ramp-Up
|11.
Objective for 3 years:
20 communities
NEW objective :
20 ACTIVE communities

12.
Active Community Label
2. Engagement /satisfaction
|12.
Measure the community value
perceived by the members.
Recognize the active
communities
Since 2013
Each member is invited to answer a
questionnaire to assess his/her
communities
The winning communities receive
the Active Community Label and
become Role Models
Conditions to participate
1. At least six months of existence
2. Updated community charter
3. At least 10 members
4. A Sponsor
A community is declared
Active IF
1. Activity score (NAS) > threshold
2. Enough participation
Members
1. Can vote for three
communities maximum
2. Are listed by
community leaders

13.
ACL Campaign is Centrally Managed
|13.
• Propose a list of communities tailored to each member (80% are member of one
community, 99% of three).
• Members cannot vote for a community they do not belong to (about 13% did it)
• One sender, to avoid people receiving several emails from several community leaders.
• Compute participation rate. Need to have a master list of members per community for
the baseline.
• Ensure that people who have left the company do impact the participation rate.
• Send reminders only to people who have not voted yet.
• Consistency of the process, as 10000+ people impacted. One message, one master list,
no cheating. Members only.
• Confidentiality.
2000+ lines of code in R

14.
Targeted Unique Questionnaire
|14.

15.
Tangible Value - NAS
|15.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Strongly.agree Agree Disagree Strongly.disagree
My community provides
tangible value to me, my business or my
clients
NAS 2016 NAS 2017 NAS 2018
2018: 70 CoP, 10 000 community members, 30% response rate, representative sample
-100
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
60
80
100
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Net Activity Score (NAS)All Strongly Agree
All Strongly Disagree
All Agree
All Disagree
Neutral
NAS: weighted average

16.
Detailed Tangible Value and Engagement 2018
|16.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
My community helps
bringing more business
My community helps
saving time
My community helps
reducing cost
Detailed Tangible Value
Strongly.agree Agree Disagree Strongly.disagree Not Applicable
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
I devote a lot of
energy to this
community
I pay a lot of
attention to
things
happening in
this community
Being a
member of this
community
makes me feel
enthusiastic
I am highly
engaged in this
community'
My
contributions
to this
community are
recognized or
valued
Community Engagement
Strongly.agree Agree Disagree Strongly.disagree Not Applicable

17.
Active Community Assessment – Drivers
Guess which ones have influence on the NAS or Participation? (2015 study)
Community profile
•Community size (membership)
•Activity on Social Collaboration Platform
•Average hierarchical distance between the voters
•Average physical distance between the voters
Member’s profile
•Diversity of the job code of the voters
•Voters average age
•Voters average seniority
•Percentage of voters who are women.
Leader’s profile
•Leader seniority
•Leader age
•Gender of the leader
•Leader is manager or not
|17.

18.
Success Stories – Gold Label
3. Efficiency
|18.
Power Conversion Community Lead by Michael
“Small, efficient and affordable inverters are a hidden but essential part of the energy revolution that is having a huge
impact on all our lives. In response to Google's ‘Little Box’ challenge, Schneider Electric’s Power Conversion experts
created a miniature prototype inverter that won 2nd place out of 2,000 entries. This was possible thanks to the
outstanding efforts of a diverse range of experts, brought together by the Power Conversion Community.”
Plastic Community Lead by Delphine
In an increasingly strict regulatory context, designing environmentally friendly products is a strategic challenge for a
responsible company. Schneider Electric’s Plastics Community helps the company massively reduce the risks
associated with plastics use, thanks to the Schneider Electric Materials and Chemicals Directive, written to address
the constraints facing all the different stakeholders.
Global Labs Technical Community Lead by Wu
As Schneider Electric’s R&D teams develop global multi-site projects, it has become imperative to guarantee
consistent tests results from lab to lab. The Global Lab Technical Community allowed Schneider Electric experts to
work together at a global level and with unprecedented cooperation, to unify and deploy global test methods that
reduce waste and improve time-to-market.

19.
Benefit of the measurement of value
|19.

20.
Benefits of measurement of value
|20.
For the community leader:
• Time allocated by management, since proof of value.
• A quantified success story convinces the most sceptical managers.
• Opinions and wishes feed the action plan.
• Recognition through the ACL label and Gold Label.
• Bad results drive overhaul of the community.
For the director of knowledge management:
• Sustainability of the community management program.
For the members
• Engagement in my community.

21.
THANK YOU
Louis-Pierre Guillaume
Founder & CEO
+33 6 10 33 63 21
www.amallte.com