Library clips

Not long ago I posted about how our Communities of Practice (CoP) are hitting a sweetspot…bottom-up and grass roots tools that provide more of a sense of place and better coordination over email, and are more enabling than the Intranet.

Great cross-functional CoPs are emerging like Bulk Materials Handling, Sustainable Development, Software Architecture and Approaches, 3D Visualisation and Animation, Bauxite and Alumina, etc..

But there is something else that’s emerging that we didn’t quite expect.

And we know why?

It’s because our CoPs are just online spaces with a bunch of tools (blogs, forums, wikis, docs, and a homepage).

This package doesn’t make them a CoP, it’s just what we called them, as that’s what the vendor calls them…nothing wrong with this…

Basically, these online tools don’t define the group or how it operates…their just tools. This also hooks into how the Socialtext staff differentiate them from past tools (transactional vs Interactive)

Anyway…

So the unexpected emergence is that CoPs are being used for lots of different things that are cutting into products we already use…why again…because people want to be empowered and engaged which distributed power (less control) enables.

What has emerged?

Let’s start with the answer and it’s effect: blogs, forums, wikis need to be features of existing products, and when they are how’s that gonna effect what has currently happened.

We don’t just have cross-functional CoPs ie. people distributed in the organisation in different teams, projects, business units, and levels of authority who come together in a space to support and learn about a common topic…which makes for a more agile organisation…it’s looking in your own backyard and connecting the talent dots.

Here are the main online groups that have surfaced.

Ad-hoc tasks

I’ve blogged about this before.

People want to do temporary tasks in an online space rather than hidden in email.

Our CoPs are more portal like with permissions and the rest, they are not one click set-up, they need a bit of upfront design.
- your CoP or mine for this task, but your not a member of my CoP…these task spaces end up buried in a CoP somewhere, they have no homepage of their own, the hosting CoP members may not like that their CoP has a unrelated parasite group

They are not the best spaces or timely and simple enough for an ad-hoc task.

For this we would need something like the new OpenText Social Media product, or Jive SBS (both of these also include a social network).

Or perhaps something more on-the-fly like Activities on Lotus Connections, or a future version of Google Wave…see more.

And Traction seems like the most flexible product around, I hear BlueKiwi is in this space as well…see more.

Initatives/Pilots/Crowdsourcing/Events

We are finding these a sweetspot, just like cross-functional CoPs.

We are starting a review of our project lifecycle process, which is to be coordinated in the CoP, basically where the organisation comes together in a communal space.

Support

I’ve blogged about this before.

It’s one thing to have a CoP to troubleshoot within a team, but it’s another thing when internal customers start asking questions for support through a CoP.

Personally I think it’s great, as people have an open place to search for past answers or even offer answers, and if you subscribe you can learn along the way.

BUT, this is cutting into the organisations official Support database. We still need this official and sophisticated tool for support management, but CoPs as a support tool are definitely cutting into their lunch.

Teams/Business Units/Office unit

These groups have a section in our corporate Document Management System (DMS)…it’s basically a set of folders.

Why are they using CoPs?

Because in the process of creating documents we have conversations about review.
Because we like to discuss issues.
Because we like to broadcast news.
Because we like to share experiences.
And email just doesn’t cut it.
And the DMS just doesn’t have these conversational tools, or a homepage that represents the group (well, they do, it’s the Intranet, but see the next point)

Intranet

I’ve blogged about this before.

Someone came up to me the other day and said, they love that CoPs are two-way, and that they can update their homepage (that acts like a portal) whenever they like.

As a result of this empowerment they mentioned that their intention is to no longer have any of their pages hosted on the Intranet, but instead, when people click on their business practice link on the Intranet, it will just take them straight to the CoP.

What’s the next natural step, that the global CoP hompage becomes the Intranet itself.

Client Projects

We have a DMS on another server with a different look and feel and processes that suit the context of projects.

But again, just like Teams/Business Units they lack a homepage and conversation tools.

Project teams want a homepage as a jump off point (a bunch of folders doesn’t cut it).

They also want this homepage to display conversations that are currently happening at the moment in email silos, this way the mechanical guys can eaves drop on piping conversations and vice versa, so we are more aware. A blog for project updates and broadcast news gets people on the same page.

Organisations are not (well maybe) Complex Adaptive Systems, so we need to make them open and transparent as much as we can, so people can be ambiently aware, and therefore better cooperate amongst the parts, and ultimately adapt to changes or even be preventative.

I have not created online CoP spaces for these projects as this is the turf of DMS, and having two spaces for the one thing seems odd, but people will self-organise their way around any design.

Let’s sum this up

CoPs are a sweetspot for great emerging unofficial groups, but they are also cutting into the following existing products:

• Email (this was the intention)
• Offical support database
• Corporate DMS
• Project DMS
• Intranet

And it seems we need a product to handle ad-hoc tasks.

Summary, future ponderings, and a suggestion

The original idea for CoPs was cross-functional practices eg Bulk Materials Handling

But as we can see because email, the DMS, and the Intranet are not as enabling, people are using CoPs as an alternative for everything.

In a way this CoP experiment has surfaced all sorts of needs, which is a good low cost experiment (naturally emerging needs analysis).

Who needs a survey, needs analysis, or just implement and hope it works as it was a good top-down idea…when the emergence that has surfaced from the existence from CoPs has given you the answer to all this pondering for free.

What it has surfaced is a need for our DMS and the Intranet to become socialised…and also a way to do ad-hoc tasks.

I’m seeing all this happening, and perhaps need to suggest a taskforce so us people running all these products can converge.

This convergence will be interesting. If these tools do get socialised, what will then happen?

Will teams decide to export their CoPs to their revamped DMS?

And if the Intranet offers the same tools as our CoPs, but with an Intranet backdrop, will some groups then export their CoPs to the revamped Intranet?

So maybe one day we will come full-circle, and CoPs will be just for cross-functional groups…as wiki, blogs, forums will be features of all products.

What’s the food for thought for people wanting to socialise their organisation online!

Perhaps firstly revamp your existing systems with social tools. ie. Work on your in-the-flow before, or perhaps in parallel with your above-the-flow.

• Intranet and business units/teams (Confluence or Thoughfarmer)
• Client Projects (Basecamp)
• Communities and Social network (Jive SBS)
• Ad-hoc tasks (OpenText Social Media)
• And what about micro-blogging (Socialtext signals)

See what’s happening here, a lot of the tools above do the same things eg. Socialtext has a social network and workspaces, OpenText has a social network, etc…

Also our projects need sophisticated document cycle functionality which Basecamp will not do, so in this case our existing DMS needs to be revamped.

I’m thinking perhaps an Intranet tool like Thoughtfarmer or Confluence could handle them all…except for client projects (requires document lifecycle processes)

Here’s a snapshot of different CoPs that are emerging:

More Than Cops

More than CoPs

By examining the CoPs, or better put, “online groups” at my work, they seem to be:

1. Teams/BU (execute work)
- which shouldn’t be called a CoP even though it is…who cares in the end, I’m happy people are using the tools

2. Teams/BU (learning/support spaces)
- this type of CoP is usually combined with the CoP above (point 1)

3. Cross-functional (traditional learning CoPs)
- a classic example is our Software Architecture and Approaches CoP where people from various units/teams come together to share, learn, help…and to bring that intelligence back to their tasks
- when we need help at work we often look to Google, Twitter, etc…why not create an environment where we can look to each other within the organisation

4. Internal user support spaces (customer service CoP)
- I run a Facilitators CoP where I communicate and troubleshoot with people that run their own CoPs
- These types of CoPs can be at the general user level, or for the support people themselves

5. Teams communicating to the business (customer CoP)
- using a CoP, rather/complementary to an email newsletter
- sometimes this type of CoP is combined with the CoP above (point 4)

6. Role-based
- people on different projects and teams, but share the same role…eg Project Managers, Project Systems Managers

7. We also have others like: interest groups, crowdsourcing, events, new initiatives, office happenings, specific tasks (although this last one suits a more simple application like ad-hoc groups…ie a bunch of people from different teams/units coming together temporarily to execute a task)

We don’t yet have any Client/Customer-based (support/crowdsource CoP, or a CoP with suppliers)

“…before you leap into reinventing your processes for transformative value, step back. You can’t collaborate with your customers before you learn to collaborate with your employees. In the spectrum of risk taking, its best to deploy from the inside-out.”

Just realised I posted something similar a while back, Internal community types that get you viral exposure.

Looks like I was prophetic when I posted What’s the difference between Intranet 2.0 and a social network with groups.

Why do I say this?

At work we have many active online Communities of Practice (CoPs), some are learning and sharing, and others are customer based information and support CoPs, or even both.

In my post Online Communities of Practice are a sweet spot! I highlighted how CoPs cut into email conversations and Intranet information.

That is, rather than using email for questions, communications, support, we use CoP tools.

Some CoPs also like the fact that the CoP can be responsive and agile compared to the Intranet. Some of our CoPs are going beyond conversations and using the CoP as a portal to profile all the information about the group and services the group offers, as you would do on an Intranet.

What they like about the CoP is that you can update it yourself daily, and you can get feedback and questions from internal customers, as well as communicate to them.

What happened the other day is a CoP facilitator mentioned that the CoP was quickly replacing their need for an Intranet page. They said soon, they wish to not host information on the Intranet, but instead just have a hyperlink for their practice that launches to the CoP.

Whoa…CoPs are cutting into the Intranet…it’s not gonna be pretty if people start ditching the Intranet.

See what’s happening, social tools are becoming a catalyst for change, but it’s not explicit, it’s just a by-product…you are not having a revolution, it’s just you start using the new thing, and the old thing becomes ignored.

What will happen if the Intranet loses control to CoPs…their worst case scenario to authoritativeness and all things official and vetted.

As global CoP facilitator I’m not being a traffic stealer, rather a few of my customers are choosing to do this themselves, and when they ditch the Intranet, people interested in their information will also be visiting the CoP, not the Intranet.

So not only are CoPs enablers for emerging groups that are not official or even mature enough to be on the Intranet, but they are starting to attract existing groups that live on the Intranet as perhaps a new place of residence.

What does this tell us? People want to be agile, they want to be more transparent and connect, they want to be close to real-time, they want to be empowered to sense-make and do it themselves…a distributed organisation…worker engagement.

The Intranet better notice this and do something about it?

If they do, where does that leave CoPs?

If the Intranet becomes a social network with group pages, will our CoPs then be absorbed into the Intranet?

This was my whole point of my past post.

You can have a “social network with groups” standalone internal website (which is promoted on the Intranet), or you can have the same thing designed as the Intranet itself.

It’s uncanny, I read a blog post yesterday by the inspiring Peter Bregman on focusing on one thing when you want to make a change or a difference…less is more. Just now, I realised that I practiced this very thing the other day.

Here are some excerpts from an email exchange I had with our global librarian at work.

LIBRARIAN: I’m really having difficulties finding the time to set up the Library CoP. Can you set it up?

ME: If you like I’d rather assist you guys rather than do it for you.
Do you have someone you can delegate to?
Would you like to start off with a telecon, as I need to know the purpose for your CoP, who the audience/s are

LIBRARIAN: Currently, we have no manpower to even start teleconferencing. But if you don’t have the time either, I understand.
Based on our list of projects, CoP is currently a nice to have tool.

ME: Why don’t you send me a blueprint for what you want to achieve, and someone in your team (preferable someone passionate) and I will do our best to help you out.

Why do you want a CoP?

1. A space to learn and share with your team?

2. A place to coordinate tasks and assist/support each other?

3. A place where general people from our work can visit and ask a question, and also subscribe to blogs about current awareness eg. new journals

It can be for all of these, if so, let’s just try one thing first, but we will keep future needs in mind when we design

Who will be the main facilitator?

- this is a person who has time and passion to drive this
- this is not you as you are too busy, but it could be you once it’s up and running

As you know a community is all about conversations in the open (rather than private in email)
- but it can also have a portal element or website feel where you list all your stuff and information
- but you seem to already have an Intranet page for this

If we slowly chip away at it we will get there.

Perhaps I’ll ask this question:

What’s your most pressing issue or process that the community can make better?

Is it 1. learning/sharing, or 2. coordinating/assisting each other, or 3. dealing with your customers

ME: I suggest using the CoP just for your team, so you guys get used to using it, but if your most pressing issue is to get info out to your customers then we can start with that

eg. If you send Journal Table of Contents emails you can publish that in a blog instead and then email the customers the link to the blog.

Even better is if people subscribe, then you don’t have to email some of those people the link to the blog post.

This way the blog will act as an archive, and people can visit it…email is just a private letter box, whereas a blog is an open house

Think of the different email exchanges you have with customers, and the ways you inform customers, and we can re-purpose that using CoP tools

I’m finding that some Communities of Practice (CoPs) at work are lacking leadership even though they have a community leader.

This is a broad statement, and there can be many reasons for this, but in this post I want to focus on one particular reason.

This has happened on several CoPs where the team leader has appointed their personal assistant or a nominated team member to set up a CoP…or the team leader has borrowed a person from another team leader as they like how they designed their CoP.
NOTE: Personally I would be inspired by CoPs with active and frequent conversation, over a well designed website.

The reason for their approach is that the community leader is technically proficient at designing and using the CoPs. The problem is that this person is not a Subject Matter Expert (SME), and does not have the interest, passion or time to facilitate the community in a non-technical way.

Facilitation is not just technical design/support, part of it is monitoring how people use the community and encouraging things, and re-purposing others…I briefly listed Facilitator’s duties at the end of my post, Community of Practice for Facilitators : pilot, adoption and participation.

My point here, is that CoPs need a breadth of facilitator’s, the head facilitator being the Community Leader.

It’s important to have the technical facilitator to cover the technical parts, but most important is the SME. Or rather whoever the community leader is must have a group of facilitators that handle different aspects of a CoP…technical, SME, etc…

Really, if it was an offline CoP then you would not need the technical facilitator at all.

Pause

I have realised for a while that this has been happening, and as the global facilitator I have picked up the pieces, but now that we have lots of CoPs, I’m finding I don’t have time, and I should be “training the trainer” anyway. That’s why I’m currently working on a facilitators workshop, which I’ve always intended to do, but never got the time. I communicate and support to facilitators in the Facilitators CoP, but I need a good real-time focused presentation and conversation to make this stick.

What tipped me over to blog these thoughts?

As a global facilitator I subscribe to all blogs and forums in all CoPs, and I stress that this is important for facilitators to do in their CoPs. This way you have total awareness of the activity, and you can encourage and re-purpose behaviours.

As global facilitator I eaves drop on the activity in all CoPs, but I never interfere, instead I congratulate/assist/recommend to the facilitator of that CoP with some action to take, as it’s not my place to talk to their members.

Anyway…

In one particular CoP we crowdsourced ideas into one forum, and from those 500 ideas we created 10 forums to house them all.

I don’t really agree with the next step, but it was decided that the heavy contributors on a topic were then nominated to be in charge of that forum.
- liase with the lead on bringing some of those ideas into fruition
- keep the forum going as general conversations about that topic

To my surprise they are doing OK, but could be going better if each forum had a person who volunteered themselves, something Samuel Driessen agreed with, but I can’t remember where he left that comment.

Anyway, I have noticed that in one of the forums called “Collaboration”, the person put in charge of that forum was also the project manager for our Office Communicator deployment (instant messaging/conferencing). He posted a new forum topic called “Office Communicator Tip of the week”…which yes, sounds like a blog post.
And in the last couple of months he has posted replies to that forum topic to publish new tips. In essence, he’s using one forum thread as a blog, where each new post is a reply to the forum topic.

I’m glad he’s participating, but his enthusiasm can be channeled to the right tool for the job. In the future that forum thread will be a needle in a haystack, it will be a thread with 50 replies. Instead he could have his own place using a blog, where the whole blog is about his topic, rather than be buried as one of many topics in a forum. The blog will have more presence, it can be furnished around his topic, and he will be more recognised…he and his know-how become a destination.

My point though is that there is no-one to notice and harness this, as that CoP only has a technical facilitator who is not looking out for this sort of thing. The CoP instead needs a SME or a leader who cares about the CoP and it’s members.

I mentioned on Twitter the other day that teams at my work don’t have web 2.0 type online team spaces, but Communities of Practice do. So what happens is that teams are using our CoP tools…and then of course these online team spaces are referred to as CoPs, which is a mistake, as the technology does not define the group dynamics (CoPs are usually naturally emerging groups about learning/sharing, whereas teams are managed groups that execute assigned outcomes).

Team working CoPs

Teams using CoPs to execute tasks, can carry on with their team dynamic of getting stuff done, manage and measure, produce outcomes/deliverables.

Team sharing/support CoPs

But more common are teams using CoPs for sharing/learning/communication/support (troubleshooting). And in this case it’s important that these team sharing type CoPs encourage facilitation rather than try run the community like a team.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the team lead and sub-team leads are too busy to run the CoP space, so a team member is given the task to run the CoP, which is sometimes like pushing up a hill, as they don’t have influence and feel they are bugging people who might not care about the CoP to start with, as they are automatically a member by default of being in the team, rather than accepting an invite. And if the lead and sub-leads are not role-model contributors then this makes it a real hard chore.

Regular sharing and learning cross-functional CoPs

For more on this point about group dynamics see my post, Team-based CoPs compared to cross-functional CoPs.

Ad-hoc groups

Then we have people coming together from different parts of the organisation who request to use a CoP space for their ad-hoc group, to work on a task like fixing a process, etc… These spaces are often more short-lived. Again this really isn’t a traditional CoP…again the technology (CoP tools) do no define the group dynamic.

Anyway, these ad-hoc groups should really be self-serve, I really feel like a bottleneck, and most of the time people don’t bother and use email because their synchronous to asynchronous flow ain’t smooth and effortless.

Sponsor vs Self-serve

Betrand Dupperin picked up on this notion of self-serve creation online group spaces, and from reading his post it seems he was more clear in his explanation.

For traditional CoPs we ask that the requestor has a community sponsor…this is important as online CoPs take time to run, and that is time the manager is allowing for, that could be spent on execution.
If there was a notice from the very top that people can spend time away from or related to tasks (like Google’s 20% time), then self-serve would be OK, but at the moment we need the requestor to note that her immediate boss is ok with this.
NOTE: we have a side issue that the CoP tools we are using are complicated to set up for a regular user, so self-serve might still be an issue from a design perspective.

Now, for ad-hoc group work, this really doesn’t require a sponsor, as the time you spend in the ad-hoc group space is time doing the task itself anyway.
So what we have to do, is work with the vendor to make simple versions of our CoP tools, where there is just one stream, and simple permissions…as stripped down as possible so it’s close to the ease of using email. This way these ad-hoc groups can be self-serve.

I see Jive SBS takes this approach where they have community spaces and group spaces, where the group spaces are self-serve and more basic.

Would people use these ad-hoc groups as traditional CoPs, probably, but they wouldn’t look like flashy websites like our regular CoPs.

I guess that’s where we are, the solution might actually create an issue…personally I would not see it as an issue but see it as emergence, and perhaps this momentum as a catalyst for the allowance of work time spent sharing and learning…not explicitly like 20% of your time, but just embedded into your day.

So what do you think?

1. Teams or departments manage their own communities
   - we refuse CoPs that tread on the turf of an existing team or department
2. CoPs require a sponsor
   - Bottom-up request, Top down creation
3. Ad-hoc groups self-serve

And what do you do if ad-hoc group spaces are used as CoPs?

Would it matter, as the ad-hoc group spaces would be so simple that the facilitator does not need to spend time managing permissions, and up keeping the space. But people may still be spending a portion of their time contributing.