Communities of practice are groups of people who share a passion or concern for something they do and learn how to do it better by regularly interacting and engaging in joint activities. They develop a shared repertoire of knowledge and skills through sustained interaction over time. Communities of practice form organically rather than by request, are self-organizing with no formal leadership, and allow participants to engage at different levels from peripheral to core membership.

1. COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
PEOPLE LEARN FROM OBSERVING OTHER PEOPLE
@aasimid

2. THE PROBLEM
ISOLATION IN INDIVIDUAL TEAMS
▸ On a multi-team project, it is possible for individuals to
become isolated, speaking mostly to others on their
individual teams. Good ideas are slow to propagate across
the organization. Similar functionality is implemented
differently by different teams. We put scrum of scrums
meetings in place to reduce the impact of some of these
problems, but those only go so far. (Mike Cohn)

3. WE OFTEN ASSUME THAT LEARNING ‘HAS A
BEGINNING AND AN END; THAT IT IS BEST SEPARATED
FROM THE REST OF OUR ACTIVITIES; AND THAT IT IS
THE RESULT OF TEACHING’.
Wenger, Etienne (1998)
STEREOTYPES

4. SITUATED LEARNING
LEARNING IN A SOCIAL CONTEXT
▸ Learning is in the relationships between people. Learning
is in the conditions that bring people together and
organize a point of contact that allows for particular pieces
of information to take on a relevance; without the points of
contact, without the system of relevancies, there is not
learning, and there is little memory. Learning does not
belong to individual persons, but to the various
conversations of which they are a part. (Murphy 1999)

5. DEFINITION
▸ Communities of practice are groups of
people who share a concern or a passion for
something they do and learn how to do it
better as they interact regularly (Wenger,
Etienne)

6. DOMAIN
THE DOMAIN
▸ A community of practice is is something more than a club
of friends or a network of connections between people. ‘It
has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest.
Membership therefore implies a commitment to the
domain, and therefore a shared competence that
distinguishes members from other people’.

7. COMMUNITY
THE COMMUNITY
▸ ‘In pursuing their interest in their domain, members
engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other,
and share information. They build relationships that enable
them to learn from each other’

8. PRACTICE
THE PRACTICE
▸ ‘Members of a community of practice are practitioners.
They develop a shared repertoire of resources:
experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring
problems—in short a shared practice. This takes time and
sustained interaction’
▸ 'A community of practice is a like-minded or like-skilled
group of individuals who voluntarily come together
because of their passion and commitment around a
technology, approach, or vision.'

9. ORGANIZING A COP
ORGANIZED HORIZONTALLY
▸ Communities of practice bring
together individuals from many
crossfunctional teams
▸ They can span projects
▸ Formed simply around various
project roles or general interests

10. ORGANIC NATURE
COP LIFECYCLE
▸ A CoP has a natural life cycle that begins with an
idea for a new community and ends with the
disbanding of the CoP once community feel the
group has achieved its objectives or is no longer
providing value

11. ORGANIC LIFECYCLE
COP LIFECYCLE

12. ORGANIC FORMATION
INFORMAL IN NATURE
▸ Better to form organically than on request
▸ Self-organizing
▸ No formal leadership
▸ Leadership is an act, not a role

13. LEGITIMATE PERIPHERAL PARTICIPATION
PARTICIPATION LEVELS
▸ Core
▸ Active
▸ Occasional
▸ Peripheral
▸ Transactional

14. REFERENCES
LEARN MORE
▸ http://www.scaledagileframework.com/communities-of-practice/
▸ Smith, M. K. (2003, 2009) ‘Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger and
communities of practice’, the encyclopedia of informal education,
www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm.
▸ http://www.slideshare.net/sgreene/dependency-management-in-
a-large-agile-environment-presentation
▸ Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991) Situated Learning.
Legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge: University of
Cambridge Press