By: Ricardo Ramírez
A definition that resonates with our experience
According to Wikipedia…
A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who “share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly”. Wenger-Trayner, 2015. The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Wenger then significantly expanded on the concept in his 1998 book Communities of Practice (Wenger 1998). A CoP can naturally evolve because of the members’ common interest in a particular domain or area, or it can be created deliberately with the goal of gaining knowledge related to a specific field. It is through the process of sharing information and experiences with the group that members learn from each other, and have an opportunity to develop personally and professionally (Lave & Wenger, 1991). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_practice
“… the process of ‘thinking together’ is conceptualized as a key part of meaningful Communities of Practice where people mutually guide each other through their understandings of the same problems in their area of mutual interest, and this way indirectly share tacit knowledge.” (Pyrko et al 2017: 389)
What has been unique is DECI’s dual role of mentoring while doing reflexive learning about the capacity development spaces and moments we have experienced with our partners.
Becoming a community of practice
DECI started operating in 2009 as an experiment to enable the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to test drive the utilization-focused evaluation (UFE) approach with its research partners in Asia. UFE is essentially a decision-making framework that, in this case, supported the grantees to design evaluations on their own terms – not as a response to the funder’s accountability requirements. The DECI team began working with five network projects that were coming to an end, and provided mentoring to their evaluation staff. The evaluation reports were produced by the grantees, and the DECI team prepared case studies as meta-evaluations. When the evaluation reports prepared by the grantees were reviewed by the IDRC officers, they were not only found to be of high quality, but they were also described as useful to IDRC as a funder. Our first research product was a UFE Primer, that includes a short chapter written by IDRC staff about the benefits and challenges they faced when giving up control over the evaluations.
A second phase of DECI introduced mentoring in both UFE and research communication, with close to a dozen project partners globally. In several cases, the DECI team was able to work with the partners in evaluation and communication planning from the start of their projects. An external evaluation of DECI-2 concluded that the mentoring support created a space for projects to evolve and do adaptive management. These lessons led to a second Primer on Evaluation & Communication decision-making.
Confirmation: Looking back and looking forward
The DECI team has taken these experiences to other clients, often working as a team of consultants that share a common background. It is only in hindsight – and in looking forward- that it has become clear the DECI has become a Community of Practice. While there are a handful of members who have moved on, there is a core team that remains working together. There have been phases of DECI where some team members have had little or no paid work due to limited mentoring opportunities. And yet, every time there is an opportunity to come together, the team of 8 meets. It would appear that we still gain from brainstorming together, and taking our shared experiences to other clients and arenas.
“The collaborative learning process of ‘thinking together’, we argue, is what essentially brings Communities of Practice to life and not the other way round.” (Pyrko et al 2017: 389)
The current fifth phase of the DECI project will end in September of 2025. This end-date has led to reflections on who and how to pass on the lessons; internally within IDRC, and to the wider global community of practitioners. Our third primer had practitioners in mind, as it is a summary of our practical experiences in mentoring – not all of them successful.
Our website includes a searchable knowledge base with 26 case studies, numerous training materials and other publications. Once DECI ends, it will be important to find a home for this collection.
We now look at mature CoPs such as the Outcome Mapping Learning Community, and wonder if this is the model we should follow. Two of our DECI members are listed among a list of eight OM consultants on the CoP website. Two DECI members are also part of the International Support Group, a CoP of facilitators of social innovation that has been around since 1997. It would appear that the different CoPs overlap in membership, in subject matter, and in ‘thinking together’.
As we plan the remaining time, we are reflecting at two levels: on the knowledge gained in capacity development, and on the nature of DECI as a CoP, as a model that other institutions may want to emulate as a safe place to strengthen practice, break boundaries and to innovate.
References
- Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press – first published in 1990 as Institute for Research on Learning report 90-0013.
- Pyrko, I.; Dörfler, V. & Eden, C. (2017). Thinking together: What makes Communities of Practice work? Human Relations 70(4): 389-409. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726716661040
- Wenger-Trayner, E. & B. (2015)Introduction to communities of practice – A brief overview of the concept and its uses. Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner. October 2013. https://www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/
- Wenger, Etienne (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press