Why do CoPs Fail?

Sheaf Square, Sheffield, England

Picture taken by Jonathan Acuña (2018)

Why do CoPs Fail?

Exploring reasons to CoP failure 

Communities of Practice (CoP) describe “a learning theory with a strong relationship to the social construction of knowledge” (Knowledge Management Tools, 2018). And a community of practice for educators needs to be a virtual ground for them to interact with one another, share ideas regarding best practices or sources of teaching materials, and to strengthen teamwork and social bonds needed in a school environment. However, organizations can find that their community is not advancing, and this sort of stagnation or lack of advancement can be attributed to a full gamut of reasons.

The lack of advancement in a community of practice can be traced back to not acknowledging the growth channels for a CoP. Eisenberg (2018) states that a CoP has a series of stages in its lifecycle: inception, establishment, maturity, and mitosis. In stage 1, inception, the CoP management wants to achieve “critical mass,” which here it is understood as a high volume of members who register in it. In the case of a school, it is basically to have everyone on board. In stage 2, establishment, the underlying idea behind the CoP management mastermind is to continue growing by adding more and more members, but it is at his phase that members’ activity is hosted, triggered, and monitored for the first time. In a school CoP, teachers are now discovering what the community offers them and perhaps what they can do for the community. In stage 3, maturity, “the objective is to reach the point where the community has reached its initial maximum potential” (Eisenberg, 2018). As put out by Knowledge Management Tools (2018), at this point we have a true “construction of knowledge” where members do participate. And finally, in stage 4, mitosis, “the objective is to sustain and increase the level of both activity and sense of community through facilitating multiple, smaller online communities” (Eisenberg, 2018). Simply stated, the institution, in the point in time, has created a series of interest groups where instructors find and share material and engage with their peers in the exchange of good teaching practices. However, if a CoP got stranded in any of these phases, it is failing and smothered by the lack of member engagement.

The lack of advancement in a community of practice can also be linked to the absence of community management. Though Vanessa Paech at an interview with The University of Sydney (2020) explains that there are three basic reasons for community management, two of them really apply to CoPs organic life. For Paech, community management should stick to “the purpose of giving members somewhere to come together and share stories” (The University of Sydney, 2020). In an education context, the CoP is the place we can provide instructors to share their expertise in the form of best practices, teaching anecdotes with a moral (or teaching), teacher-made materials, and the like. This virtual space gives the teacher “a social context of being an integrated part of [the] community” (Knowledge Management Tools, 2018). In the absence of a community manager, this may fail especially if the CoP did not advance to the establishment phase. The other idea shared by Paech (The University of Sydney, 2020) is that the community management helps align members “to get a movement or to get a cause going.” Achieving this movement or cause going may really be happening in the maturity phase. In the case of the school’s CoP, due to the lack of a leader in charge of the community management, new members will just perceive inactivity or lethargy and will not comprehend the real idea of being an active participant in this virtual space. If a CoP lacks someone in charge of its activity, it is failing and no members will pounce down upon the resources in its repositories of material or academic conversations.

The lack of advancement in a community of practice can also be linked to the absence of channels to make the community grow. There are various channels to reach members for a CoP, but “the challenge is to know when to use each channel to drive the growth you desire” (Eisenberg, 2018). The first and most reliable way of gaining new members for a community of learning is by direct growth. This “happens when you are appealing to an audience that you already have access to” (Eisenberg, 2018). In the school setting, the cohort of educators can be directly invited by mail or by other means the institution finds appropriate. A second channel to gain new members for the CoP is through word-of-mouth. When teaching staff members are already part of a CoP, they can start sharing content with peers and tell them where that content (and more) is available for them if they are active participants in the community. A third channel that could be related to an audience that is not exactly yet accessible to the institution is promotion. “There are a variety of different promotional channels that can be used to appeal to an external audience, for example, events and competitions, newsletters,” etc. (Eisenberg, 2018). On the contrary, if a CoP do not have promotion channels, it is then failing and teachers will find themselves sorely dissappointed with the so-called community of practice.

To sum up, if a CoP is failing to achieve the founders’ intention to build it, this can be connected to one of the reasons exposed above. This does not mean that there are no other reason for a CoP’s failure, but they need to be examined to rule them out. In the meantime, it is crucial for the health of a CoP to spot and acknowledge the growth channels a community undergoes from its foundation to its consolidation. Secondly, it is also fundamental for the heartiness of a CoP to ensure the presence of a community manager figure who can help align members to its purpose and reason for existing and get the community going and sharing. Additionally, it is imperative that channels to make the community grow are regularly examined and analyzed to enhance members activity and help the CoP reach the pinnacle of its success.

References

Eisenberg, R. (2018). Building Community - A Primer. Washington DC: World Bank Group.

Knowledge Management Tools. (2018). Organizational Learning and Communities of Practice. Retrieved August 19, 2020, from knowledge-Management-Tools.Net: http://www.knowledge-management-tools.net/communities-of-practice.html

The University of Sydney. (2020). Community Management, Interview. Retrieved August 19, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/ethical-social-media/1/steps/824144

[9] Communities of Practice Failure by Jonathan Acuña on Scribd