workshop on
communities of practice

by SDC/IC - COOF on 14th and 15th July 2004 at Ashirwad, Bangalore.

The learning event facilitated by Mr. K.R. Viswanathan and Mr. N.R. Jagannath of SDC/IC, was held with the objectives of::

• To learn and share the concept and experiences of Communities of Practice
• To get an insight into the concept of Knowledge Management as opined by SDC with focus on learning
• To come out with an action plan

“Communities of practice are groups of people who share a passion for something that they know how to do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better”. The elements of CoP are Domain (the definition of the area of shared inquiry and of the key issues); Community (the relationships among members and the sense of belonging) and the practice (the body of knowledge methods, stories, cases, tools, documents)

Though the “Communities of Practice” is a new term, the concept is old. It is a technique to learn together. The origin can be traced to the corporate world. The world famous Xerox machine company had their machines installed all over the world. Occasionally, these machines would develop technical snags. The engineers who dealt with the snags thought of ways of solving through informal sharing during lunchtime. Through these discussions, they found solutions to various problems that they encountered with the machines. These people shared their “practice” in a “community”. Finally it was all about managing knowledge.

The participants were from NGO partners of ISPWDK, ICNGOKTN and PSMU staff.

Presentations and discussions of the workshop