As part of our Knowledge School program, a meeting on "Communities and Collaboration for Knowledge Management" with Stan Garfield an experienced knowledge management practitioner was held. The meeting was held on 8 Dec. to articulate the functionalities of communities for KM. The meeting was held at Knowledge and Information Science Department, Tarbiat Modares university as a blended meeting. Many Dr Stan Garfield joined us via teleconferencing system and our master and PhD students also participated at the event. After I introduced the meeting, KM PhD candidate, Ms Mila Malekolkalami, spoke about the importance of knowledge management and the role of collaborations through communities based on Stan's recent paper on "Establishing a collaboration process to bolster knowledge management". He proposed a 3-phase process as following: 1. Define and enforce a collaboration policy for how teams are to collaborate. 2. Implement a collaboration process for project teams. 3. Discourage team collaboration from taking place outside the team space. It was very interactive event with quality questions from audiences and answers from Stan. I appreciate all people participated in our meeting.
I would like to have your comments on the topic!
Defining policy and articulating process is not a particularly new modus operandi. That said, the rationale for discouraging team collaboration from taking place outside the team's "space" would need to be clarified, at least from the perspective of what is to be understood by the term "collaboration", if only because we now also have networks of practice. In the Age of Knowledge, can (or should) space be fenced?
A different take on how to build communities of practice would consider questions about (1) strategy, (2) domain, (3) community, (4) practice, and (5) support. These days, questions about (6) information and communication technology are of the essence too. And, what about (7) results and their measurement?
Article Building Communities of Practice
Article Communities of Practice: Passing the Fitness Test
Article Building Networks of Practice
Presentation A Guide to Communities of Practice
Dear Olivier Serrat
I agree with you. I think building and improving communities of practice specially in a manner that to encourage people to share their tacit knowledge and participate as a knowledge champion requires an in depth approach.
Thank you and Mr Dr. Hassanzadeh for proposed this topic. I agree with you, but what is the difference between social knowledge management and communities of practice? Are these similar?
Thank you for your comment and question.
I think there is a little difference between them in terms of process management.
Communities of practice are defined as part of organizational sphere and are somehow under organizational rules. Even informal CoPs are to obey the organizational legislations and rules.
In turn, social knowledge management refer to a broader concept and process which may cover communications out of organizational borders. Finally, I see CoPs as a connector between organizational and societal environments.
Hi Mohammad,
check the website of IAKM (International Association for Knowledge Management) as one example of an active existing CoP on KM.
http://iakm.weebly.com/
Meliha
Dear Meliha
Thank you for your reply to my question! and letting me know about the IAKM. I will browse through and try to keep in touch.
With the best wishes
Mohammad
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