Communities of practice: dare to share the knowledge

ABSTRACT

Communities of practice are not a new idea, but they are being looked at more closely as an important tool for learning and mastering knowledge challenges. Communities of practice often lend themselves to a particular strategic intent for their existence.[6] The Help Desk with all of its ongoing training and sharing naturally lends itself to the purpose of a helping community.

An inherent quality of communities of practice is that they connect people across organizational boundaries. By nurturing a community of practice that brings together student help desk staff, user services staff, and system support staff, the Help Desk is able to nurture a knowledge sharing culture that makes the student consultants feel more valued in their work, and willing to seek solutions from their peers as well as across traditional organizational boundaries.[3] The student consultants also contribute knowledge from their unique perspectives.

This paper will review the history of our first attempts at developing a community of practice at the Help Desk and the ongoing cultivation process.[5] .

REFERENCES

• 1: John Seely Brown , Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, 2000
• 2: Brown, J. S., and Duguid, P. p 222.
• 3: Denning, S., Pommier, M., Schneier, L. (2002, February 14). Are there laws of knowledge management? {Paper presented at Connecting the future: Global summit of online knowledge networks, Adelaide, March 4-5, 2002}. Retrieved April 9, 2004 from <http://www.educationau.edu.au/globalsummit/papers/denning.htm>
• 4: McDermott, R. (1999). Why information technology inspired but cannot deliver knowledge management. California Management Review, 41 (4), 103--117.
• 5: Debbie Mojta, Building a community of practice at the help desk, Proceedings of the 30th annual ACM SIGUCCS conference on User services, p.204-205, November 20-23, 2002, Providence, Rhode Island, USA [doi>10.1145/588646.588694]
• 6: Etienne Wenger , Richard McDermott , William Snyder, Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, 2002
• 7: Wenger, E., McDermott, R., and Snyder, W. p 4.
• 8: Wenger, E., McDermott, R., and Snyder, W. p 89-90 Wenger, E., McDermott, R., and Snyder, W. p 71.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.1 Project and People Management
          Subjects: Management techniques (e.g., PERT/CPM)

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.1 Project and People Management
          Subjects: Training; Staffing

General Terms:
Human Factors, Management, Performance

Keywords:
communities of practice, help desk, knowledge management, learning, management, organizational learning, student staff, training