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Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge
Wenger, E., McDermott R. and Snyder, W. Harvard Business School Boston, MA 2002
Keywords Groups, Knowledge management, Organizational change, Organizational development, Organizational learning
The idea of providing a guide for cultivating communities of practice seems to go against the very nature of communities of practice. There is no prescription for success, or hard-set rules to follow. Different organizations require different approaches. Nonetheless, the authors provide just such a guide. One that succeeds at giving practitioners guidelines to follow to establish and cultivate communities of practice in a single organization or across multiple organizations.
The book begins with a description of communities of practice, "groups of people who share a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis" (p. 4) and the importance of communities of practice in developing an organization-wide knowledge strategy. The structural elements of communities of practice, domain, community and practice, are then discussed. Seven design principles for developing communities of practice are suggested: designing for evolution, opening dialogues, inviting levels of participation, developing public and private community spaces, focusing on value, combining familiarity and excitement, and creating...