Communities of practice: what are these groups and how do they work?

There are many methods of group work to expand knowledge on a specific topic.

Communities of practice represent one of the most powerful. Through the following points we can get a general idea of ​​how these systems work and what their strengths are compared to other different methodologies.

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What are communities of practice?

Communities of practice are groups of people who associate with the common objective of expanding knowledge and practices about a certain topic. In this community, everyone's practical experiences are shared and reflected upon. In this way, everyone benefits from mutual work and also experiences a strengthening of relationships between the members of said group.

The researchers Étienne Wenger and Jean Lave were the first to mention this methodology, in 1991.. Since then the popularity of communities of practice has been increasing, being referred to in more and more articles. Other authors, such as John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, tell how one of the first communities of practice arose naturally, at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center.

In this case, they discovered that the operators in charge of repairing the printers often did not use the technical manuals that had been supplied to them, but rather preferred take advantage of the breaks and pauses to discuss with their colleagues the different incidents they had faced and what had been the way they had managed to find the solution. solution. Others exposed the breakdowns they were managing and asked for advice.

Without realizing it, this group of workers had inaugurated a very powerful and effective methodology., that of communities of practice. Thanks to this, each technician could share his experience with the rest of his colleagues and in turn benefit from the practical cases that each of the others had experienced and that they were now sharing with the group in question.

Some researchers suggest that communities of practice could be an evolution of the classic method of brainstorming, seen from a practical rather than a theoretical prism.

Characteristics of communities of practice

Communities of practice must have a series of characteristics that we will describe below.

1. shared leadership

Community is made up of a homogeneous group of participants. That is, they are all in the same position. There is no leader figure who shares his knowledge while others listen, but rather all members teach with their experience and at the same time learn with that of others, so they would be on an equal footing conditions.

If there can be a figure of coordinator, in charge of connecting the different members and organizing meetings or events, suggesting the debate on different problems and promoting the active participation of all the members of the group, so that all make contributions equally and benefit from those of the rest.

2. field of knowledge

The common link between all members of the community of practice must be a specific field of knowledge. This element will be It will provide the group feeling, being the element shared by all the members of this society. Each member wants to become a subject matter expert while helping everyone else become one.

3. Practice

The very activity or practice of that shared knowledge will be the engine of the community, since it is the activity that generates the experiences that can later be shared to give meaning to the group and allow all members to learn from the activity of others as if they had carried it out themselves themselves.

4. community feeling

When the communities of practice are put into operation, a feeling of identity is generated, facilitated by all the previous elements, by which all members want to help others, sharing everything that can be useful and also making use of the information that the rest contribute. It would be a kind of hive in which all are bees pursuing a common goal, which would be their own success as well as that of their companions.

It could be the case of people who approach the community solely for the purpose of collecting information and experience of the members, but not with the purpose of sharing their own practice with the rest. In this case, said person would not be an active member of the community, since they would not be complying with the reciprocity criteria. Instead it would be a peripheral member, assuming it ever makes a contribution, or it could even be an external participant.

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virtual communities of practice

The appearance of new technologies and specifically the Internet and social networks has led to the evolution of communities of practice in their virtual modality, and it is that Nowadays it is not necessary to meet in person with a group of people to be able to share knowledge, far from it. It is not even necessary that we be geographically close.

On the contrary, digital media make it possible for people from different parts of the world to connect through one platform. online with people interested in the same field of knowledge and thus be able to share experiences and learn from others the rest.

As generally in these platforms (forums, Facebook, WhatsApp groups, etc.) the contributions of each person are reflected in writing, it is not even necessary for all members to be connected at the same time or belong to the same time zone. A person can consult a question at the moment it arises and will receive answers as members access the publication and write their answer.

Also having a written record of all publications makes it easy to find the author of a certain contribution and also to be able to offer the information in an organized way when new members arrive to the different communities of practice.

Obviously, not all people have the same knowledge or the same practice, so there will be people who can participate more actively and share more complete or useful information. They will be the reference members of the group, but little by little a homogenization will be carried out, as the others also learn and can contribute a greater amount of experiences that enrich even the most members assets.

Although we had anticipated that the communities of practice do not have a leader who contributes data while the rest of the members receive it passively, they do. there may be a moderator or animator, especially in these virtual communities. This figure would be in charge of promoting this two-way participation among all members.

How to create such a group?

We already know what the characteristics of these groups are and what makes them so useful. The next thing we might ask is how to create a community of practice. To do this, Wenger proposes a system of seven principles that must be followed in order to build one. They would be the ones we are going to see.

1. Ease of evolution

The community of practice must behave like a living organism. For this we must lay the foundations that allow it to grow and evolve according to the interests and needs of the group members.

2. Permeability

It is important that the opinions of the members are taken into account and therefore penetrate the community. But sometimes it is just as important to also take into account ideas that come from outside our community of practice, as they can be enriching and generate growth.

3. Participation levels

We must encourage participation counting on a group of very active members that will spur the rest, the peripherals, so that they contribute more and more knowledge to the group. There will also be people outside the community who, although they do not participate, can also benefit from the knowledge provided. Ideally, these people will also make their contribution, but in many cases this will not happen.

4. Public and private spaces

Communities of practice work just like many other social interactions. Sometimes they will be given publicly where all members can participate while other times, two or more participants will prefer to have a private conversation where they can resolve some particular doubts without the rest having to knowledge of it. There needs to be a balance between both situations so that the health of the community is guaranteed.

5. Add value

What makes a community of practice valuable is the interest members have in that particular topic. if the community provides valuable data for those people, we will be facilitating the continuity of the group.

6. closeness and emotion

What differentiates the community of practice from a working group is that there is no such pressure to meet targets and we also have a motivation towards the theme, which facilitates generating a climate of closeness and pleasant emotions among the members of the association.

7. take care of the rhythm

Finally, it will be important to measure the rate at which the community advances. Like everything in life, virtue is in the middle ground, because if the community of practice is barely advancing and nobody contributes interesting information, the most likely thing is that people lose interest, whereas if we bombard them with an incessant cascade of data and experiences, we can also overwhelm the members and risk that they give up

Bibliographic references:

• Fernndez, M.R., Valverde, J. (2014). Communities of practice: an intervention model from collaborative learning in virtual environments. Comunicar: Ibero-American scientific journal of communication and education.
• Sanz, S. (2005). Virtual communities of practice: access and use of content. University and Knowledge Society Magazine.
• Wenger, E. (2002). Communities of practice. Learning, meaning and identity. Cognition and human development. Paidos.