 |
Communities of Practice (CoP) | ||||||
|
 |
||||||
|
Overview
Organizations are typically organized based on products, divisions, locations and functions. In such distributed organizations, Communities or CoP's form an essential glue to tie the organization together by forming a focal point to share knowledge, collaborate and innovate in specific technology areas, disciplines and processes. The dynamics of a Communities of Practice (CoP) are different than those of project teams and team sites. CoP's require a specialized set of tools and processes in order to be successful. 
AskMe products provide critical capabilities such as community champion tools, membership levels, dashboard, expertise location/matching, Q&A system, etc. to successfully form Communities of Practice. AskMe for SharePoint provides these capabilities fully integrated into SharePoint which is a popular platform for project/team collaboration and portals. In addition to the right technology and tools, the implementation methodology and process is critical to start-up and sustain Communities of Practice. Recruiting and motivating community champions and users, right objectives and expectations, right approach to tracking community health, etc. are important aspects detailed in the Services section. Benefits of CoP's
Customer Example Stryker Corporation is the world leader in medical devices and instruments. Stryker has 10 divisions operating independently that cater to different market segments such as Orthopedics, Endoscopy, Surgical, Instruments, and Communications. These divisions develop and manufacture different product families with little or no collaboration between them. Stryker constantly had the problem of inability to re-use research learning's, new components/prototypes, new compounds and process improvements from one division to other. AskMe helped Stryker build "Communities of Practice" around common technology disciplines such as electrical engineering, LCD displays, batteries, etc. as well as process oriented disciplines such as quality, design reviews to enable sharing and re-use of knowledge between divisions. As a result of CoP's and increased sharing across divisions, Stryker was able to achieve:
|
||||||
