What is this recipe?
A Community of Practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a common specialism or profession and come together regularly to learn from each other and improve their skills.
Think of it as a club for all the user researchers, content designers, or business analysts who work across different council departments. It’s not a formal project team with deadlines; it’s a voluntary group focused on sharing knowledge, solving common problems, and developing best practices.
The goal is to break down organisational silos and help practitioners connect with their peers. By creating a support network, a CoP helps build the council’s in-house skills, improve the quality and consistency of work, and increase staff morale and retention. It’s a powerful way to foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement from the ground up.
When is it good to use?:
This recipe is great for building skills and connecting people who do similar jobs but might not work together day-to-day.
- When you have people in the same role scattered across different departments (e.g., data analysts in Public Health, Finance, and Corporate Services).
- When you want to develop and agree on a set of standards, like creating a single content style guide for the whole council or a consistent way of doing user research.
- To provide a support network for people in specialist roles, which can be vital for those who are the only person with their job title in a team.
- When you need to build capability in a new area, like service design or product management, by allowing practitioners to learn from each other’s experiences.
- To create a space for sharing “lessons learned” from different projects, helping other teams avoid the same pitfalls and adopt successful approaches.
How does it work?:
A successful community is owned by its members, not managed from the top down.
- Find the People and Purpose: Identify the practitioners for a specific discipline. Get them together and agree on a shared purpose. What problems do they all face? What would they like to learn? What value will the community provide to them and the council?
- Set a Regular Rhythm: Decide how often to meet. Fortnightly or monthly for an hour is a common pattern. Book a recurring meeting and protect that time. Consistency is key to building momentum.
- Create a Shared Space: Set up a lightweight channel for communication between meetups, like in Microsoft Teams or Slack. This is for asking quick questions, sharing interesting articles, and posting notes from the sessions.
- Plan Your Sessions (Loosely): Have a rough agenda for each meeting so it doesn’t drift. Good formats include:
- Show and Tells: A member shares a piece of work they’ve been doing.
- Crits (Critiques): The group gives constructive feedback on someone’s work-in-progress.
- Lean Coffee: A structured but agenda-less meeting where the group democratically decides what to discuss.
- Guest Speakers: Invite someone from another council or organisation to talk about their work.
- Share and Show Your Value: Make sure the work and knowledge of the community are shared. Write blog posts, present at wider team meetings, and make any standards you create (like guides or templates) available to everyone.
An example:
A large unitary council has several business analysts (BAs) working in different directorates like Adult Social Care, IT, and Customer Services. They all map processes and write requirements, but they use different templates and techniques.
A senior BA decides to start a Business Analysis Community of Practice. They meet once a month.
- In their first few sessions, they share the different templates they all use for gathering requirements.
- They discuss the pros and cons of each and agree to create a single, standard set of templates for the whole council.
- In another session, a BA from Adult Social Care does a ‘show and tell’ on how they mapped a complex ‘Care Needs Assessment’ journey, sharing techniques that other BAs can use.
The better outcome: The council now has a standard, high-quality way of doing business analysis, which makes it easier for teams to collaborate and for staff to move between projects. The BAs feel more connected and have learned new skills from their peers, improving their professional development at no extra cost. The community has improved the quality of a core capability across the entire organisation.
Further reading:
- Communities of practice in government: Guidance from the UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS) on how and why they use communities. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/communities-of-practice-in-government
- Introduction to Communities of Practice: A short, foundational article explaining the theory from Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner, who coined the term. https://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/
- LocalGov Digital: A peer network for digital practitioners in UK local government. It acts as a nationwide community of practice. https://localgov.digital/
- Lean Coffee: A simple format for running structured, agenda-less meetings, which is perfect for community sessions. https://leancoffee.org/
- How to start a community of practice: A practical blog post from a digital agency with step-by-step advice. https://dxw.com/2023/07/how-to-start-a-community-of-practice/