Community of practice

a way to connect your experts across your business

A community of practice is a group of people with a shared interest, who drive the quality and development of their expertise together.

A community of practice can be a group of experts.

It can also have diverse levels of knowledge and skill on its given topic within the community.

In business communities of practice are a method of knowledge management, ensuring that knowledge on shared topics is available and exchanged by all people involved.

A community of practice need not be co-located and in particular in international business, is often virtual.

It brings together people with a common interest and enables growth in that topic of common interest as well as for the participants.

It can decrease the learning curve for new entrants into a company or area, enable quick response times to customer requests, reduce additional efforts caused by re-inventing the wheel, and drive innovation.

Key elements of a community of practice are: interaction, exchange, sharing and a domain of common interest.