10 Critical Success Factors in Building Communities of Practice Many companies are discovering that the real gold in knowledge management is not in distributing documents or combining databases. This paper outlines the key challenges and solutions to start and support communities capable of sharing tacit knowledge and thinking together.
Communities also connect in many different ways.
Team Organizations Many companies today are moving to a new organizational model in which cross-functional teams are the key building block of the organization. While cross-functional teams are great vehicles for producing products and services, they have some key limitations. Cross-functional teams can become insulated from each other, focusing on team goals and reinventing ideas and analyses from other teams. The informal nature of communities is much more conducive to learning, continually increasing mastery and development of new knowledge. Communities of practice are an integral part of our daily lives.