Delivering business value from communities of practice

‘It is our task – our essential, central, crucial task – to transform ourselves from mere social creatures into community creatures. It is the only way that human evolution will be able to proceed.’ M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum. Fashion. Communities of Practice (CoPs) has become a very widely used term. A simple search on Google for ‘Communities of Practice’ or ‘Community of Practice’ in January 2004 returned around 150,000 hits. Searching for the associated term ‘Communities of Interest’ returned over 110,000 hits. But are CoPs just a fashion? Fashion accessories are often expensive, have a limited life and clutter up the wardrobe for a long time after they have ceased to be useful. Your organisation doesn't need another fashion accessory.