Editorial Review:
Today's marketplace is fueled by knowledge. Yet organizing systematically to leverage knowledge remains a challenge. Leading companies have discovered that technology is not enough, and that cultivating communities of practice is the keystone of an effective knowledge strategy.
Communities of practice come together around common interests and expertise- whether they consist of first-line managers or customer service representatives, neurosurgeons or software programmers, city managers or home-improvement amateurs. They create, share, and apply knowledge within and across the boundaries of teams, business units, and even entire companies-providing a concrete path toward creating a true knowledge organization.
In Cultivating Communities of Practice, Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder argue that while communities form naturally, organizations need to become more proactive and systematic about developing and integrating them into their strategy. This book provides practical models and methods for stewarding these communities to reach their full potential-without squelching the inner drive that makes them so valuable.
Through in-depth cases from firms such as DaimlerChrysler, McKinsey & Company, Shell, and the World Bank, the authors demonstrate how communities of practice can be leveraged to drive overall company strategy, generate new business opportunities, tie personal development to corporate goals, transfer best practices, and recruit and retain top talent. They define the unique features of these communities and outline principles for nurturing their essential elements. They provide guidelines to support communities of practice through their major stages of development, address the potential downsides of communities, and discuss the specific challenges of distributed communities. And they show how to recognize the value created by communities of practice and how to build a corporate knowledge strategy around them.
Essential reading for any leader in today's knowledge economy, this is the definitive guide to developing communities of practice for the benefit-and long-term success-of organizations and the individuals who work in them.
Etienne Wenger is a renowned expert and consultant on knowledge management and communities of practice in San Juan, California. Richard McDermott is a leading expert of organization and community development in Boulder, Colorado. William M. Snyder is a founding partner of Social Capital Group, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
Excellent work on Communities of Practice  2008-08-11
Cultivating Communities of Practice is the second book from Wenger which is only about Communities of Practice (COP). The first book was a little dry and academic (and intended to be), but this book is your typical business book, which makes it easy to read. Wenger is teaming up with Richard McDermontt and Willian Snyder, which probably helped a lot in the amount of real-life stories in the book.
The books can be separated in two major parts. The first five chapters are about just about COP and the last five chapters are about COP related to other topics.
The first two chapter are introduction chapters which talk about what COP is and what their value is to the organization. It also does a good job in separating COP from other communities. The three main elements of a COP is domain, community and practice. A COP related to a domain, creates or has a community and owns a set of practices within that domain. They are self-managing and emergent, which means that in organizations its hard to create them -- you need to cultivate them.
The third chapter talks about the cultivation and the principles of doing so. I probably liked this chapter most, it's concrete and clear. It can be used directly in organizations who would like to promote communities.
The next two chapters describe a typical life of a COP and the different stages they go through. Knowing the typical stages helps in deciding your actions to cultivate them.
Interestingly, I wish I would have stopped reading after chapter 5. (which the exception of chapter 7). At this point I thought the book was one of the most interesting books I've read in a while, but then the second part was disappointing to me. Chapter six talks about distributes COP. It is still important, but somehow the tone of the chapter changes (or did my mood reading it?). Chapter seven was good again, about the downside or dysfunctions of COPs and what to do about it.
Chapter eight, about measuring the value of COP, completely lost my interest. The writing style seemed to change (different author?) and the emergent, self-managed tone of the first couple chapters changes to a more controlling tone. The examples also changed and most related to McKinskey.
Chapter nine is the typical "change" chapter of business books and describes the stages for implementing COP in organizations. Chapter ten tries to predict the future of COP. Though I felt chapter ten just miserably failed and it even seemed the authors moved away from their previous definition of COP and talked about communities in general.
After the first five chapters, I would have rated this book five stars and would have recommended it to everyone. Though, the last five chapters would just be a three star rating, so I'll go for the average here.
I'd strongly recommend to buy this book and read chapter 1-5 and 7.
A must read for those working to create learning communities  2008-06-07
This book was recommended to me by a colleague who has years of experience in cultivating learning collaboratives. It is stunningly insightful and practical, and the authors speak from observation and experience spanning a wide range of organizations and circumstances. It really is a "how to think about this issue" and "how to make it happen successfully" manual. Highly recommend it.
Communities of Practice: Energy, Tools, and Gosh 2008-05-28
Cultivating Communities of Practice
I really enjoyed Cultivating Communities of Practice. A major part of my pleasure came from the compassionate enthusiasm the three co-authors emit for communities. Reading this, I got the sense that they really liked people, really liked communities, and were overjoyed they got a chance to study them.
This leads to a certain naiveté at times. I half-expected to hear "Gosh" or "Wow!" (Anybody remember, "Hey, kids, let's put on a show!" In this case, it felt like they were saying, "Hey guys, let's form a community of practice.") Thankfully, this is countered by the realism of Chapter 7, which discusses the downsides of communities of practice, and by the discussions of the natural life cycles of communities of practice, which at times includes dying off.
If you're considering forming a community of practice, there's a lot here for you. For my part, I'm a member of a community that is supposed to be a community of practice (a study group), but that alternates between dissolving into the purely social (community only) and the proudly dogmatic, two of the weaknesses Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder warn against. I've got a handful of tools to try to regenerate the community. More importantly, I have a conceptual frame I can use to track the health of my community of practice. That's quite useful.
Greg
PS: This book works well with other books on collective knowledge creation, such as Group Genius and Infotopia.
Many good, practical ideas for implementing Communities of Practice 2008-05-19
I originally thought this book might be too academic or that the examples from Shell and McKinsey would not be relevant. I was pleasantly surprised, however, that the book contained numerous ideas that I'm using to introduce communities to my IT organization.
The book isn't perfect. It could be shorter. The writing is dry. Some of the observations and recommendations verge on the obvious. But even the chapter on Measuring and Managing Value Creation - one of the more high-level and unhelpful chapters - talked about the use of "systematic anecdotes" to demonstrate value of a community. The examples of story-telling to demonstrate value resonated with me and we're using this approach today.
The bottom line is that the book is very useful. I took many notes, dog-eared a number of pages and I'll be using it as my implementation reference.
Excelent Book 2007-10-01
I have a project focused on communities, and this book seems right on what I needed. I haven't read it completely, so this is only a first sight review.
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