Organisational Development

This stage focuses on delivering the projects and peer to peer learning activities agreed and initiated in Stage 3: Launch & initiate.  Tools like Trello can help members of the Core Group keep track of progress against objectives and facilitate awareness amongst members of any challenges/blockers or opportunities that arise, enabling an open and solution focused discussion to take steps to redress in a timely way.

Enabling participation

Project and learning activities provide opportunities for members to participate.  It is also worth considering other ways in which members can connect to other members in an informal way.  This helps to build connections and relationships, critical to fostering a sense of community, which in turn enables and generates new insights, knowledge, practice and opportunities. 

Some CoPs run monthly coffee catch ups, which are open forums for any member to attend, hear about what’s happening, contribute ideas and get to know other members.  Similarly, to Core Group check-ins, they can provide a vital cadence, reminding members of the shared purpose and the benefits of actively participating.  For members of the Core Group, this kind of fora can also provide opportunities to take stock on what’s working, what needs to change or perhaps where different solutions surface, reinforcing the ethos of a CoP to listen, learn and adapt. 

Regular communications

It is important that ‘delivery’ is visible to CoP members with regular communications.  These communications will provide an update on progress, trail up and coming events and activities, opportunities to get involved and also reaffirm a call to action for new ideas.  Wherever possible, these communications will help to reinforce the values, demonstrate broad participation in progressing actions which empowers and shares ownership, and value contributions which reward and recognise participation. 

It can be helpful to consider the timeliness of communications, alongside the cadence established through Core Group check-ins and monthly coffee catch ups (as appropriate).  These fora require ‘similar content’ so co-creating and aligning key messages can reduce duplicated effort.

Understand participation

It is critical that the Core Group understands participation in CoP events and activities, in line with the mechanisms established in Stage 3: Launch & initiate for example:

• complete the excel spreadsheet to log participation numbers at events and to record quarterly web analytics data
• monitor progress against measures that will help understand the impact of project outputs/outcomes
• survey members to understand their experiences of participation of learning events, adapting the MS Forms template
• seek regular feedback from the Sponsor and/or those colleagues working on projects to understand broader impact on the ‘domain’/University

Visit Stage 5: Understand impact to find out more.