Community of Practice Design Guide, A Step - by - Step Guide for Creating Collaborative Communities of Practice’

iCohere (n.d) ‘Community of Practice Design Guide, A Step - by - Step Guide for Creating Collaborative Communities of Practice’, Creating Collaborative Communities, viewed 7th May 2008.

This article provides a practical approach and a structure to help clarify the essential design elements that go into defining, designing, launching and growing Communities of Practice in the online and face to face environments. The iCohere (n.d, para 1) Community of Practice Design Guide introduces the concept of communities of practice which is ‘….a group of people who share a common concern, a set of problems or an interest in a topic, and who come together to fulfil both individual and group goals. Communities of practice focus on sharing best practices and creating new knowledge to advance a domain of professional practice.’ (iCohere n.d, para 2). In addition iCohere (n.d) view communities of practice as important in the organisational context where they provide a new model for workgroups and teams to connect people in a shared context in the spirit of learning, knowledge sharing and collaboration and individual and organisation development.
iCohere (n.d) describes the importance of the lifecycle of communities of practice which includes the following stages:

Inquire – identifying target markets, goals, purpose and vision
Design – defining activities, technologies and group process and roles
Prototype – piloting the community with key stakeholders including feedback and refining the community to launch and rollout to a broader audience
Grow – engaging members in collaborative learning and knowledge sharing activities
Sustain – cultivating and assessing the knowledge created by the community

It is important for educators to understand each stage and utilise the support strategies which can assist a community of practice getting to its next stage of development. For example, iCohere (n.d) suggests that in the prototype and grow phases, relationship building and learning may be the focus whilst in the sustain phase knowledge sharing and project management may be the core focus. This has relevance for e-learning environments as it is not simply enough to build the online technology, turn it on and expect a learning community to flourish. Conscious facilitation through understanding the life cycle will assist a community of practice become a sustainable entity (iCohere, n.d).

In addition it is important not to put too much emphasis on the technology platform or “technical architecture” as describe by iCohore (n.d). Importance must also be placed on the “social architecture” of the community which is the roles, processes and approaches that engage people in the learning process. iCohere (n.d) suggests the most effective community facilitation involves setting up a predictable rhythm about how and when people should participate and that a combination of both face to face meetings, live online events and collaboration within a persistent web environment will help participants learn the norms, roles and expectations of the community.

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