Communities, Work teams, Social teams and Crews
It started with a thread on actKM about “content communities”…
“Communities are voluntary associations of people around a specific topic or activity, and when they participate, they are probably thinking about the topic,
not about creating “content”. That’s more of an organizational view of
what the output of a community is. I feel a little uncomfortable with
the label “content communities”. Content is one *result* of a
community. (so are expertise location, stronger relationship bonds
between members, faster on-boarding of new recruits, etc.)
I think in the business world “reuse” is still valuable, because it is
understood by managers. It has implicit organizational value (if you
reuse something, you save the cost of buying or producing a new one).
Of course, most of the content produced in organizations is not actually
re-used…unless you mean reuse = read. I don’t recall seeing any
recent research that equates reuse to improved decision making or
actions (i.e., the value in reuse) that were taken because a person read
a document in a database. Maybe it’s true if they “reuse” a video that
shows how to do something. Does anyone know of any research like that?”
- Kaye Vivian
NOTES
I like the idea of finding something and re-mixing it to your context
I like the idea of on-demand help in the context of need, in which the interaction becomes an artifact (that people can be aware of as it happens and can find later), and as a result of the interaction it influences a document/deliverable (that can be found later)
Communities will form (emerge, surface) if they have value, which usually comes from interactions…after a while (some repetition, shared identity, passion and relationship building happens)…a community appears…the members will describe and talk about the positive group connection that is happening to them and call themselves a community.
This is in contrast to the notion of engineering a community;
“A man can no more create a community by filling out a form on a webpage than he can make a fruit tree by taping fruit to twigs and twigs to a stump”
“Thanks for the pointer - I want to be sure we’re not talking past one another. I think I am beginning to understand your question better, thanks to your answer to Kaye - you are looking at ‘content communities’ as ones specifically organized to produce documents?”
- John Bordeaux
“According to what you describe, I don’t think it’s a “community” at
all. It’s a “work team” or something similar. To my understanding,
true communities form around a common interest in a topic (which could
be a work related topic, such as underwriting or chemical engineering or
critical care nursing, or something completely personal, like the poems
of Anna Akhmatova). Their purpose is not to create content…the
content is a by-product of how the members interact in exploring their
common interest.
I don’t think communities have “mission critical” expectations. Organizations do.
I agree with you that “content” is a viable “lens” for how you view the
results of what a community is about, but I don’t think it can be an
expectation up front when the community is formed. Communities are
voluntary, self-governing, and set their own agendas. I believe you are
right that there is a continuum of communities related to how important
content is to their interactions. Some social communities don’t need to
create content at all (look at Act-KM…the interactions are the
content).
Where I (think I) disagree is that any “community” formed for
the purpose of creating a content resource is not a true community.
Now, that said, true community may form among some/all of the members of
a work group as they work together to create the content that is
expected, but that is independent of the act of creating and posting
content. My two cents, anyway. :)”
- Kaye Vivian
NOTES
I like how Kaye differentiates between artifacts and work products, when she says “the interactions are the content”…this is content as a by-product, as opposed to interacting in order to come out the other end with a document or product…an expectation.
“Agree that “content communities” are a type of community orientation. eg. producing a document.
Here’s a link to orientations:
But this can be similar to work teams ie managed, interdependencies…
…maybe “voluntary” is the key defining factor eg. if you don’t produce it your job is on the line…or you have been given a budget and allocated your time…this sounds like a work team
But CoPs can still produce content another way eg. the Practice part (the P in CoP)
…if I’m in a CoP where we volunteer our product support we can then pick the gems out of the forums and blogs and make FAQ and topic/tips pages (kind of like playlists from your music collection)…we could even go further and create some practice documents for all our benefit…but it’s all voluntarily
I remember Nancy White reminding me that sometimes CoPs do tasks and sometimes teams do learning and sharing…fuzzy boundaries
Here’s a table I came up with comparing the difference between work teams and CoPs, but I mean it to be not in a religious or black and white way, just the general points of difference.
Below is the table, if it didn’t render properly in this email, here’s an old version of it
UPDATE: Looks like tumblr isn’t displaying this image, so here’s the link (tumblr is holding out on me…once you click the link to display the image, then click refresh)
—-
“…add a category under Participation, call it results. What values would you put under team versus community?
Work teams would have “deliverables” while communities would have an improved and “cohesive praxis”
I think the notion of a content community doesn’t make sense, I think that’s a work team as I understand Neil’s question. So I believe you’re onto something.
And if we extend the table to include results it may become obvious. Teams are otherwise known as “communities of purpose’” a less than useful term that helped flesh out a communities of interest/practice/purpose troika.
So I like returning to work teams. Showing what results from the groups helps cut through the jargon a bit for me. Make sense?”
- John Bordeaux (in an email to me)
NOTES
Brilliant insight by John…by adding something helps us understand the comparison better. Perhaps I kind of covered this “Results” category within the “Purpose” category where I mention Outcomes (Teams) and Emergence (CoPs)
Bertrand Duperrin compared CoPs and work teams:
“Communities are places where practices, knowledge, informaiton are exchanged and has not to be confused with workgroups which are operational entities…Groups know that they have to do, to deliver, and that’s why they exist. Groups exist because they have operational purposes. Communities exchange to learn, groups exchange to execute (even if there a learning dimension in the background routine).”
All this is not to be confused with the Absorptive capacity of flocking as social teams.
“…we “exist” as a community, but we “achieve” as a team
Each of us “exists” within a multitude of communities with which we associate – with differing levels of interest. However, to actually achieve a specific aim/goal, we need to tap into a subset of that group to create a “team” to help us achieve that.
It’s important to understand that whilst I use the term “team”, these sub-groups of people don’t exactly conform to the standard idea of what a “team” looks like or acts like – we’re no longer looking at working groups of enlisted employees in a corporate environment
These “Social Teams”…members may never have met each other, but nevertheless choose to work with each other to achieve a mutually desirable goal or function.
Social Teams are not top-down, nor bottom-up; they can be purposely set-up, or self-formed by team members; they can exist in purely social settings or as corporate sponsored groups.
They are a collection of individuals who have a common understanding of the “game they’re playing” (ie the team’s purpose); know in which goal they’re trying to score in (ie have a shared understanding of what ‘a win’ looks like); and are collaborating together to achieve that aim.
They incorporate the structure of a traditional team, with the social contract of a community.
By relying, as so many companies do, on simply “enabling a community” to exist, they’re essentially doing the equivalent of sitting on the sidelines of a soccer field waiting for 11 random people to find the field, collectively decide that they want to play the same game, and then set out to beat Arsenal Football Club with no organization at all.”
- Boris Pluslowski
NOTES
I like the notion of discovering and learning as a community, and executing as a team.
What’s the difference between a “social team” and a “project”?
Maybe social teams are based on the business allowing time for people to flock together and work on problems and achieve things. Does Google 20% innovation time spawn social teams, that can lead into more formal structures if they surface value.
Or are they simply ad-hoc teams where workers see the value in something, self form, get the OK from high up, achieve it, and disband..still you need time to be allowed to do this…ie. freelance in the organisation and assign tasks to yourself.
Perhaps similar to Dave Snowden’s concept of “crews”
Related
Work group fatigue : level of effort vs funded or transform the organisation
