You can find an introduction to Community of Practice Meetings in Chapter 32 of Where the Action Is. These resources will help you plan, run, and troubleshoot the specific Community of Practice Meetings your team needs.
Definition
A Community of Practice Meeting is used by people with a shared interest in a topic for networking, learning, and mutual support.
Questions Answered
- What can we teach each other that may help us improve our individual practice in this area?
- How can we advance this topic together?
Examples
- Monthly Safety Committee Meeting
- Project Manager’s Meetup
- Lunch-and-Learn (sometimes called a “Brown Bag,”“Town Hall,” or whatever your organization uses)
Purpose
- Topic-focused exchange of ideas.
- Organizational and individual capability development.
- Relationship development.
Work Outcomes
- Focused attention in an area that doesn’t warrant a dedicated team.
- Organizational capability development: more skilled people.
Human Outcomes
- New knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
- Improved ability to perform the job.
- Recognition.
- A feeling of belonging.
- Larger networks.
Meeting Agenda Templates and Guides
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How to Host a Peer Mentor MeetingElise Keith - These meetings give people from across your organization an opportunity to compare experiences and learn from one another as they work through a shared challenge, such as a significant organizational change or major project. Peers share what they’ve done that worked well and challenges they’re facing, then work... [ more ] |
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How to Run a Latte and Learn Reflection MeetingPilar Orti - This is a meeting agenda template for "Latte and Learn." Latte and Learn sessions help team members to learn together by reflecting on a recent experience as they share it with others. It is also an informal way of spreading knowledge through a team and nurturing creativity, as team members discuss topics outside... [ more ] |
Lucid Blog Posts
Elise Keith (2021). The teams that operate in uncertain conditions never know what they'll face when they show up to work. Firefighters, athletes, investigators: they can't plan what will happen each day. Instead, they develop skills for performing in a variety of situations, tools for assessing the situation they find themselves in, and then respond with their best guess at what they believe will work in the moment.
Elise Keith (2019). At Lucid Meetings, our mission is to make it easy for teams to run successful meetings every day. Teaching teams the skills they need to run successful meetings seems like an obvious way for us to fulfill this mission, which is why we've now opened our first courses to students. We opened Meeting School now because, after over a decade of research and work with high-performing organizations, we know what works.
Elise Keith (2018). A real-time agenda is a process for co-creating, prioritizing and discussing a list of topics in real time.
Recommended Reading & Resources
Articles
- "Effective safety committees", Thomas J. Bukowski (2014).
Research Papers
- "Developmental sequence in small groups", Bruce Tuckman (1965).
