The Learning Expedition of
Communities of Practice:
Where Are We At?
presented at the launch basecamp
of the Co-Creation Network, by George Pór
Leeds, 19 March 2015
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The Big Picture of the CoP Journey
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The Origins
It all started with the Jönköping Microsystem
Festival. Returning delegates were keen to
sustain and spread the energy and creativity
experienced there but found no proper vehicle to
do that.
In response to that need, our team of Future
Considerations consultant was brought in and
helped the formation of communities of practice
(CoP) that became the origin of the Co-Creation
Network.
Last October we had two workshops and created
an online platform to raise awareness and start
developing capabilities for cultivating CoP. Some
of participants stepped forward to become
community facilitators.
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What Has Been Accomplished So
• The current list of 11 early-phaseFar
communities is on page 23 to 27 of your
CCN brochure, along with how you can contact them.
• There’s also a CoP Support Team that serves both as the core group of
the Co-Creation Network, and coaches to the CoP facilitators
• Angela Green produced two lovely videos about the Co-Creation Network
and its first basecamp in January
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw29zyaFMNU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL8ycfQcdig&feature=youtu.be
And we’ve just seen that awesome animation by John Walsh.
• The network has attracted wonderful people “connected by a deep
commitment to NHS values and a belief that as people working
collaboratively together we can evolve our health and care systems.” Jane
Pightling, NHS Y&H Leadership Academy.
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What’s Ahead on Our Journey
Self-managing communities don’t work
like formal organisational hierarchies.
Community-enabled improvement and
other results emerge from the passion of
their members to co-create something
valuable to themselves as practitioners,
to NHS and its service user. That
something is largely unpredictable and
uncontrollable.
What’s ahead on the journey will emerge from your conversations
today and this evening, from the desire of what you want to create
together. Nevertheless, based on the story of many communities of
practice around the world, we can identity some elements of typical
CoP trajectories.
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What’s Ahead for the Potential
•CoPs
Attract a core group of members who
want to support the self-organization of the
community. “You must build on existing
interests and relationships. For any
important topic in an organization, there is
usually an informal group of people already
interested in it.” (Etienne Wenger)
• Develop an initial plan for how the core
group would fun-ction and what its work will
entail. For example, core group members
can work with you on co-creating the CoP’s
core statement, organizing the community’s
meetings and preparing suggestions for
initial community decisions.
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What’s Ahead for the Coalescing
CoPs
• Develop jointly with community members an
initial list of hot issues to enquiry into (the shared
learning agenda).
• Create a community design, including:
definition of the CoP’s domain of practice, value
proposition to members, frequency of
interactions, and some initial roles and
accountabilities, e.g. knowledge gardener and
boundary spanner (connector with other CoPs).
• Populate the community’s online platform with
content of high value to members, and open
conversations on topics of highest interest to
them.
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What’s Ahead for the CoP Support
Team
• Make
visible the communities’ work to each other
• Organise quarterly Basecamps
• Establish and guide the initial work of a CoP of
community facilitators
• Maintain the Network’s website, including its
knowledge garden (online library)
• Secure funding to support the work of the
Network
• Liaise with the Jönköping Microsystem Festival
• Develop a CoP results’ evaluation framework
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What’s Ahead for the Co-Creation Network
• Create channels and events for communicating
improvement methodologies, project examples,
successes and failures, across the communities
of the Network.
• Establish an Advisory Council comprised of
CoP researchers and senior leaders in health
and social care to provide guidance, challenges,
and protection to the communities.
• Develop mutually supportive relationships with
interested health and social care agencies in
Yorkshire & Humber, the UK and abroad.
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