Communities of Practice in Local Government

Theme: Web2.0, Collaboration & Communities

Learning Points

1. Moving from a culture of knowledge repositories (people to information) to one of knowledge collaboration (people to people).
2. Introducing a sceptical and mature staff demographic to the concept of virtual collaboration using Social Computing/Web 2.0 facilities.
3. How to create, develop and grow trusted communities of practice in local government.

Synopsis

The past five years have seen significant changes across the local government sector. The need to meet stringent targets for performance and efficiency as part of the Comprehensive Performance Assessment, and the huge investment in technology driven by central government’s ‘e-government’ strategy have indeed led to improvement across the sector. However, as many councils have found, digitising assets, developing new web sites and investment in EDRM have not always delivered the improvements they were hoping for. On the contrary, the proliferation of web sites across the sector has only served to encourage a silo mentality in many authorities, making life far more difficult for staff to find, use and share information and knowledge.

There is a growing realisation that, coupled with the reduction in central government funding, the tipping point has arrived, and that any further efficiency and service improvements can only be delivered by smarter working and making more effective use of tacit knowledge to drive innovation.

This was the catalyst for a new KM strategy developed for the Improvement & Development Agency (IDeA) to improve the way that councils connect and share knowledge with each other. By supporting communities of practice and networks across local government, the IDeA is promoting the potential of knowledge management as a tool for continuous and sustainable improvement. The strategy encourages knowledge to be shared and maintained across local, regional and national boundaries and supports the development of public sector policy and innovation.

The key challenge was motivating and educating a predominantly mature and sceptical staff demographic on the merits of social computing and Web 2.0 technologies that could support virtual communities of practice.

This was largely achieved through regular training events and the development of a purpose-designed virtual collaboration platform , which integrates a number of Web2.0 tools into a common workspace. Low barriers to entry, simplicity and ease of use were the key criteria in the design of the platform, which was launched in September 2006. By December 2007 over 250 communities of practice had been established and over 8,000 users had registered on the site. For many, this was a completely new way of working.

For the first time, staff are easily able to find and connect with peers and experts working in other councils, without the constraints of geography or politics. For example, a group working on child adoption policy in Sunderland can connect and collaborate with similar groups in Somerset or Wiltshire. The ‘silo’ mentality is gradually being eroded, and knowledge is no longer confined to isolated and replicated repositories.

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