Reference no: EM131937631

Develop communities of practice Assessment Tasks

Knowledge Assessment - Written Tasks

1. Wenger argues that there are three crucial characteristics of a community of practice. What are they?

2. What benefits do communities of practice provide?

3. What is the role of a COP member?

4. Define knowledge mapping.

5. Discuss the application of Communities of Practice in an organisational context?

6. Research and outline how you would create a group or distribution list using Microsoft Outlook.

7. Research and create a full set of instructions to create an enable a Skype Chat Room (Skype for Business).

8. Discuss some of the considerations an organisation would take into account in selection of collaboration software to facilitate communities of practice.

Task 1 - Collaborative Tools and Communities of Practice

Select, research, install and configure one of the following applications:

1. Slack - Slack is a popular and well-crafted platform offering instant messaging, file transfers and powerful message search. It has many features and dozens of integrations with other tools like Trello and Intercom.

2. WebEx - Cisco's WebEx provides personalized video meeting rooms where users can to host and join meetings. People can use WebEx for team collaboration, webinars, training and customer support.

3. GoToMeeting - GoToMeeting is an online video conferencing software that allows users to schedule meetings and share screens. It's one of the most popular video tools with millions of users.

4. Flowdock - Flowdock is a group and private chat platform. Its most interesting feature is its team inbox which aggregates notifications from other channels, like Twitter, Asana and customer support tools.

Answer the following once you have installed the application:

Application Selected:

• What is the purpose of the application?
• How are groups organized in the application?
• What is the role of the tool in communities of practice?
• What are the benefits that can be realized by using the application?
• How are people invited to participate?
• What video options are available?
• Describe the platform that the application was installed on?
• How was the installation tested?
• Join at least 2 others to the collaborative discussion. How was this done?

Task 2 - Development of a Community of Practice

For a nominated workplace, either a workplace you have access to or for a simulated business,

• identify and map appropriate areas for communities of practice (CoPs) for the organisation
• identify and manage the provision of enabling methodologies
• foster and encourage participation in CoP
• facilitate the development of CoP.

As such, you are required firstly to determine the ways I which the organizational knowledge flows and is organized and any informal communities of practice that exist within the organization. Having an understanding of the organization, describe the benefits of utilizing communities of practice and outline methodologies to achieve these. Develop the system which will provide:

• Public and private shared storage areas
• Group mailing capabilities
• Document management and version control
• Spontaneous coalesce and online meeting platforms

Invite a number of participants to join the community of practice (at least 5). Hold a group meeting on at least 2 occasions.

Create a report to the organisation outlining the development, technology and benefits of the project.