Chapter 14: Cultivating Communities of Practice

This chapter elaborates on approaches to nourishment, cultivation, and remedies well suited to a CoP and its components. The authors highlight the good advice provided in the traditional literature by thought leaders, but expand it to address each component of the model. To discover an expanded set of methods, the authors look to the learning sciences, communication and behavioral sciences, and sociology. This final chapter brings the reader back full circle to the interdisciplinary nature of CoPs.

The rich learning environment of communities of practice (CoPs) makes them essential sources of economic growth in a knowledge economy. CoPs are well aligned with the knowledge economy because they are dynamic, living, and growing systems. Like any living system, CoPs require nourishment. CoPs cannot and should not be managed like traditional functional teams or organizations. In its approach to building CoPs, the US Department of State coined the phrase – community gardening. Gardening, nourishing, and cultivating are how we grow and keep CoPs in a healthy state.