Chapter 13: States of Health and Wellness of Communities of Practice

This chapter explains why traditional assessment and evaluation methods are ill-suited to supporting a CoP. A new diagnostic and remedy approach, aligned with new strategic management, is better aligned with a dynamic and chaotic knowledge economy. The application of diagnostics to individual components is also suggested. A full CoP diagnostic is the aggregate of component diagnostics. The authors define several states of health observed in real-world CoPs. Practical examples also suggest that individual components require different remedies and solutions to maintain a healthy state.

Communities of practice (CoPs) are complex living systems made up of people. People are the source of the knowledge capital. The condition or state of CoPs is important because the healthier and more productive our CoPs are, the more capital they generate for a knowledge economy.