Deploying Positive Change through Community of Practice Model

By Heidi Siegelbaum

April 19, 2022

As we move ahead with the Puget Sound recovery via a roadmap called the Action Agenda, operationalizing Implementation Strategies and associating actions to strategies, a core question is: who is the subject of our asks?

Implicitly and explicitly, we are asking individuals, communities, organizations, and professional/social groups of all types to do more of something, less of something, substitute behaviors, approaches, change programs, behaviors… or to just pivot--- tweak an existing practice.

As we know, humans don’t like change all that much. We also don’t always know with particularity, who our priority audiences ARE.

A Community of Practice Model

Below I offer a draft Community of Practice model that would be nested under identifying broad audience-implementer types (e.g., small farmers, shoreline homeowners, fishers, larger businesses operating in industrial zones etc.).

What are Communities of Practice?

Communities of Practice are self-organized groups of people that come together to acquire, refine, share and use a domain practice (subject matter). Members tend to engage at different levels and most often enjoy some form of support from their respective member’s organizations. They are essential for fulfilling actions and policies to support Puget Sound recovery.

An example of a Community of Practice would be the Toxics Workgroup (part of the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program). They are self-organized, come from different organizations where their participation is sanctioned, focus on a number of intersecting toxics issues, and continually refine and share their research and findings for applied use in policies and communication. Within the Toxics Workgroup, you can find smaller nested Communities of Practice like ecotoxicologists, toxics policy analysts, chemists, biologists, or habitat specialists.

Another example might be the interlocking permeable pavement community organized by the City of Tacoma which includes the three major forms of practice. Within that Community of Practice you would find additional subspecialties.

Rick Steves standing in a white corvette during a parade in the summer.

People who love Rick Steves are a social community of practice. Here is Steve in Edmonds, WA.

In our conversations, we have talked about using sectors as implementers of our actions: forest landowners, residential landowners, fishers, farmers etc. These are broad classifications that belie the complexity and nuance within each sector. For instance, there is no “one ag” but large-scale seed crop producers, diversified small crop farmers that dominate places like Thurston and Skagit counties, hobby farms, and large dairy operations. In our first blush discussions, we need to take care to use scaled references to “sectors” that the Local Integrating Organizations, tribes, and towns—can help us refine.

About Communities of Practice

Communities of Practice are much more nimble, discrete and smaller than “sectors” and share these attributes:

They are self-committed to a domain of practice (e.g., GIS analysts, or O&M for Green Stormwater Infrastructure) in which they acquire, refine, store and share knowledge between themselves and others;
They are dynamic and fully engaged, securing additional knowledge on the “periphery” of the group (e.g., the group gets information from other organizations, sources, and people outside the group itself);
They represent “communal” resources that evolve over time and reflect the importance the members ascribe to that knowledge;
They tend to address recurring problems;
The members participate in different degrees and levels; and
They work on what’s called “tacit” knowledge, or cultural pathways, or the way in which things get done.

Communities of Practices can combine tacit and explicit (empirical, book) aspects of knowledge. Knowledge resides in the skills, understanding, and relationships of its members as well as the tools, documents, and processes that embody aspects of this knowledge: (1) Design; (2) Development; (3) Plan; (4) Direct; and (5) Organize.

PSEMP workgroups are an example of Communities of Practices.

Table covered in brainstorming on white paper with logic models.

This is a photo of a community of practice deepening its understanding of BIBI, or critters like Ms. Mayfly.

Behind the Scenes

People’s understanding of, and response, to environmental issues is deeply embedded in social meanings and relationships. This includes: (a) cultural cognition and identity protection (Kahan 2011); (b) social and group identity effects (Parks 2013); and (b) social influence (Cialdini 2011).

Application and Use of Communities of Practices

Communities of Practice Action: Communities of Practice can: (1) connect local pockets of expertise and isolated professionals; (2) diagnose and address recurring problems; (3) analyze the knowledge related sources of uneven performance; (4) link and coordinate unconnected activities and initiatives addressing a similar knowledge domain.

Value/Benefit of Communities of Practices: (1) get help with immediate problems (derive better solutions to make better decisions); (2) take more risks (community back up); (3) find synergies across organization boundary buffering; (4) build sustained value by developing an ongoing practice that will serve strategy; (5) sense of trust and ability to innovate; (6) provides legitimacy (protective cover) they need to steward knowledge effectively; and (7) social capital--- relationships, trust, sense of belonging and spirit of inquiry, professional confidence.

I will put to bed the "general public," which does not exist, nor did it ever exist. All we ever had were our passions put to use in the form of communities of practice.