Communities of Practice: The Missing Piece of your Agile Organisation
A SkillsCast for this session is not available.
Connecting with other people, finding a sense of belonging and the need for support are natural human desires. Employees who don’t feel supported at work don’t stay around for long — or if they do, they quickly become unmotivated and unhappy. At a time when organizational structures are flattening and workforces are increasingly fluid, supporting and connecting people is more important than ever. This is where organizational communities of practice come in.
Modern organizations with cross functional teams, have the ability to silo organizations into teams, programmes and functions. They can take people further away from other people that they can learn with. We need a way to bring people with the same concerns back together and this is what communities of practice do.
Communities of practice have many valuable benefits for both individuals and organizations. They include accelerating professional development; breaking down organizational silos; enabling knowledge sharing and management; building better practice; helping to hire and retain staff; and making people happier.
In this session, Emily will pull from experiences of building and growing communities of practice at the Government Digital Service, other government departments and organizations as well as case studies from her ongoing research into this area. You will gain an understanding of why community of practice are so important in modern organizations and practical advice to those who are thinking about setting one up or looking to reinvigorate one that already exists.
KEYWORDS
Continuous Delivery, DevOps, Software Engineering, Quality
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Communities of Practice: The Missing Piece of your Agile Organisation
Emily Webber
Emily Webber is a London-based independent Agile consultant, coach, trainer and speaker. Her focus is on creating the right environments for people and teams to succeed. She does this by enabling effective collaboration, agile ways of working, embedding communities of practice and leading initiatives for growing skills and capabilities. All of which help create sustainable change.
She was previously the head of agile delivery at the Government Digital Service, where she built, developed and led a team of about 40 agile delivery professionals. At GDS, she created the widely-followed approach and maturity model for communities of practice and subsequently authored Building Successful Communities of Practice.