Setting Up Successful Communities of Practice: An Experience Report
1. SETTING UP SUCCESSFUL AGILE
COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
SESHADRI VEERARAGHAVAN
PRINCIPAL PROJECT MANAGER – AGILE TRANSFORMATION
IHS, INC. – HOUSTON, TEXAS
AN EXPERIENCE REPORT
2. DEFINITIONS – COMMON UNDERSTANDING
• Community (noun) - com·mu·ni·ty
• a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.
• a similarity or identity.
• Practice (noun) – prac·tice
• the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method as opposed to theories about such application or use.
• repeated exercise in or performance of an activity or skill so as to acquire or maintain proficiency in it.
• Practice (verb)
• perform (an activity) or exercise (a skill) repeatedly or regularly in order to improve or maintain one's
proficiency.
• carry out or perform (a particular activity, method, or custom) habitually or regularly.
3. COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
Cognitive anthropologists Lave and Wenger define it as a group of people who
-- share a passion for something they do
-- learn how to do it better
-- interact regularly
4. EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
• Research areas by Lave and Wenger included studying learning among
• Yucatan midwives
• Tailors in Liberia
• Insurance claims processors
• These groups exhibited common paradigms of sharing, learning, and growth
5. A MODERN-DAY EXAMPLE OF A COP: XEROX
• Xerox repairmen in the field used to informally exchange tips and tricks on common problems
• Communication usually done over lunch and informal meetings
• Eureka database created to keep track of these tips and tricks
• Savings due to the Eureka database: over $100 MM USD
6. CHARACTERISTICS OF A SUCCESSFUL COP
• Domain (e.g. agile)
• Community (e.g. ScrumMasters)
• Practice (the practical aspect of the application of the knowledge and sharing the learnings)
7. SO, WHY SET UP A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE?
• Share
• Learn
• Grow
• Teach
• Enrich
• Mentor
8. BENEFITS OF COP
• Organic organizational growth
• Higher productivity
• Happier employees
• Cost savings
• Sharing of key knowledge and technologies
• Unexpected and fruitful collaboration
• Empathy and shared emotions, leading to stronger employee bonding that transcends normal,
business-as-usual interactions
• Smoother and easier onboarding of new employees
• A safe environment within which one can learn without judgment and contribute without fear
• Employee empowerment and engagement
• Ownership through involvement
• Innovation through broader collection of ideas
10. CURRENT COPS AT IHS
CoP ScrumMasters Product
Owners/Managers
Quality
Assurance
Developers
Established July 2013 Coming soon (relaunch)
03/2015
April 2014 April 2014
Frequency Every 2-3 weeks Monthly Fortnightly Fortnightly
Member Count Approx. 90 Approx. 40 (already signed-
up)
Approx. 12
(expanding
quickly)
Approx. 12
(expanding
quickly)
Topics Covered Kanban,
collaboration, open
forum, planning,
estimation, Rally
demos
Q&A, crossover with SMCoP QA signoff, test
case design,
demos,
integration and
security testing
Data
analytics/cloud,
major platforms,
web frameworks
11. STEP 1 – IDENTIFY THE COP
• Need: Identify the Community to be created
• Challenges:
• Most colleagues very new to or not exposed to agile
• Dispersed teams and colleagues
• Very large organization with varying reporting hierarchies and groups
• Overcome by:
• Strong backing of executive sponsor
• Bureaucracy/red-tape cleared quickly
• Already buzz around the company around agile
• Qualified colleagues eager to join/make a difference (we already had some CSMs)
12. STEP 2 – IDENTIFY THE STAKEHOLDERS
• Need: Figure out who the stakeholders are (influencing; removing roadblocks)
• Challenges:
• Resources and time are not free
• Understand and respect the time commitments of all involved
• Early game – only promises; trying to get something for nothing
• Very large PD&D group spread all over the world
• Overcome by:
• A willingness on the part of supportive management to encourage this experimentation
• Strong networking
• Interest coming from the grassroots
• Many stakeholders already were (somewhat to quite) knowledgeable regarding agile
13. STEP 3 – EDUCATE THE STAKEHOLDERS
• Need: Full disclosure to the stakeholders on what’s coming and what’s needed
• Challenges:
• Potential negative response post-disclosure
• Overcome by:
• Being able to demonstrate the value of CoPs
• Being upfront and honest about the effort
• Promise to start small and fail quickly and cheaply
14. STEP 4 – IDENTIFY THE MEMBERS
• Need: Figure out the participants in the CoP
• Challenges:
• Need to identify qualified candidates
• Should also be willing to participate and evangelize
• Should be willing to devote time from work to do this
• No real (perceived) gains – mostly notional in nature
• Overcome by:
• Getting recommendations from the main stakeholders
• Network across teams and groups to pick out start contributors
• Spread the message as much as possible to attract the top talent
15. STEP 5 – GET EXECUTIVE SPONSOR BUY-IN
• Need: Get full and unconditional support of the chief sponsor of the effort
• Challenges: None, as they already were on-board
16. STEP 6 – CREATE THE CHARTER/MANIFESTO
• Need: Get the charter/manifesto together
• Challenges:
• Can’t be too specific
• Can’t tie yourself down to any specific methodology or a rigid structure/hierarchy
• Overcome by:
• Keeping the overall purpose and mission a bit flexible
• Being totally open about the exact nature and purpose of the CoP – so no twisting/bending
needed
• Check-in with the Sponsors to ensure the charter/manifesto was in keeping with their vision
17. STEP 7 – SET UP THE WEBSITE/SOCIAL SITE
• Need: Set up a website for storing documents/artifacts and to collaborate
• Challenges:
• No ESN existed at the time
• SharePoint has easy-to-use templates to create a basic site, but not built for collaboration
• Need to keep material fresh and relevant
• Overcome by:
• Leveraging a SharePoint expert to set up the initial site and get training on admin/maintenance
work
• Encouraging collaboration beyond just the site and bleeding into local(ized) meetings
• Recent rollout of Jive (ESN) has helped things tremendously
18. STEP 8 – SOLICIT MEMBERS AND GENERATE BUZZ
• Need: Get a strong awareness of this movement going, plus ensure identified members are
invited and that they’re committed, as well
• Challenges:
• Highly dispersed teams
• VERY busy colleagues tied down by releases, bugs, production issues – typical software demands
• Overcome by:
• Getting stakeholders to talk about this effort via email; in meetings; in the intranet as blogs etc.
• Once the buzz set in, reaching out to the members and set up group meetings
• Explaining the purpose, charter, goals, and any other useful information
• Following-up and saying they’ll hear back soon
19. STEP 9 – LAUNCH THE COMMUNITY
• Need: Final step in the main process: LAUNCH!
• Challenges:
• Finding a suitable time for all (remember, we have global participants)
• Has to be done right to instill confidence and to gain credibility and support
• Has to be the right length – not too long or too short
• Has to demonstrate immediate value or immediate potential
• Overcome by:
• Coming up with a quick consensus on the date/time (majority wins – can’t please everyone)
• Maximum length has been 1 hour (with the odd exception)
• Bringing in an expert from within or outside of the company for a talk
• Having them talk specifically about the value of such communities
• Have the expert speak to their direct experience and provide examples of previous success
20. STEP 10 – SUSTAIN THE COMMUNITY
• Need: Sustain the effort now that things have started
• Challenges:
• HOW?
• Overcome by:
• Engaging informally and formally via internal social media or website
• Holding regular sessions (WebEx and teleconference) and recording them
• Uploading the recordings and related artifacts and send out follow-up email promptly
• Asking for what’s needed/what’s missing/how to improve/deliver on needs and requirements
21. STEP 11 – SUCCEED!
• After 2-3 months, request feedback on the Community
• Make changes gradually
• Point out the changes being made if appropriate to satisfy those requesting them
• List successes and bring to the attention of the stakeholders and executive sponsor
• Invite stakeholders and executive sponsor to ALL sessions (let them decide if they wish to attend)
• Publish periodic executive summaries in newsletter format, easy to read, short, relevant and interesting.
Include links, graphics, and resources
• New Enterprise Social Network, based on Jive, is really making a lot of difference!
• The Agile Investigation Groups that we created (SIGs) did some very nice work in areas such as
Commitment-Based vs. Velocity-Based planning and scaling agile etc. They have been quite influential
22. CURRENT CHALLENGES & NEXT STEPS
• Current challenges:
• Getting new members interested right away
• Different levels of maturity and knowledge and interest
• Getting many more people to contribute
• Bringing in awareness of the latest industry trends
• Next steps:
• Leverage the ESN a lot more
• Create local “guilds”
• Create more special investigation groups
23. FURTHER SUCCESS
• Helped set up a CoP for QA – it’s going really well
• Helping set up a CoP for Product Owners
• Assisting also with a CoP for SCM (Source Code Management)
24. TESTIMONIALS
Project Manager: I look forward to these meetings; I know that when we had a sub-team
that researched and presented, it was great. The recordings are great to have.
ScrumMaster: I don't just like it, I LOVE it!
Sr. Mgr. PD&D: I really like the community!
Sr. Mgr. PD&D: I think this is great idea to share knowledge in a discussion form to achieve
better efficiency.
Sr. Software Engg./ScrumMaster PD&D: I love the idea of the community!
Dir. R&D: I find the community very vibrant...For the sessions, I like the variety, where we
go sometimes from open questions to full presentations
