K6233: COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE PROPOSAL –

LAUNCHING OF COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE IN A VOLUNTARY WELFARE ORGANIZATION IN SINGAPORE

SUBMITTED BY:

NUR SYAHIDAH BINTE ALIM (G1101756D)

NIRMALA SELVARAJU (G1101760J)

SUBMITTED TO:

MR. GOPINATHAN

DATE OF SUBMISSION:

20 APRIL 2012

WEE KIM WEE SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION

SEMESTER 2, 2011/2012

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................................... 2 !2. INTRODUCTION TO CASE STUDY ................................................................................. 4

2.1. About Asian Women’s Welfare Association (AWWA) .................................................. 4 2.2. TEACH Me Services .................................................................................................... 4

!3. COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE (COP) IMPLEMENTATION FRAMEWORK ...................... 6

3.1. Definition and Rationale of Communities of Practice (CoPs) ....................................... 6 3.2. Five Phases in Building Communities of Practice (CoPs) ............................................ 6

3.2.1. Phase 1: Inquiry .................................................................................................... 7 3.2.2. Phase 2: Design .................................................................................................... 7 3.2.3. Phase 3: Prototype ............................................................................................... 8 3.2.4. Phase 4: Launch ................................................................................................... 8 3.2.5. Phase 5: Grow and Sustain .................................................................................. 8

!4. COMMUNITY INQUIRY PHASE ....................................................................................... 9

4.1. Needs Assessment ...................................................................................................... 9 4.2. Community Identity .................................................................................................... 10

4.2.1. Domain ................................................................................................................ 10 4.2.2. Community .......................................................................................................... 10 4.2.3. Practice ............................................................................................................... 10

4.3. Organizational Strategy and Value ............................................................................ 11 4.3.1. Vision and Expected Outcomes .......................................................................... 11 4.3.2. Sponsorship and Organizational Issues ............................................................. 12 4.3.3. Current Success Factors and Risks .................................................................... 13

!5. COMMUNITY DESIGN PHASE ...................................................................................... 14

5.1. Community Cultivation ............................................................................................... 14 5.1.1. Forms of Participation ......................................................................................... 14 5.1.2. Orientation Profile ............................................................................................... 15 5.1.3. Learning Activities ............................................................................................... 17 5.1.4. Community Roles ................................................................................................ 18 5.1.5. Technology ......................................................................................................... 19

!6. COMMUNITY PROTOTYPE PHASE .............................................................................. 19

6.1. Discovery and Preparation ......................................................................................... 19 6.1.1. Setting Pre-launch Committee ............................................................................ 19 6.1.2. Overall Approach to the Launch Event ............................................................... 19 6.1.3. Preliminary Assessment of Participants .............................................................. 20

!7. COMMUNITY LAUNCH PHASE ..................................................................................... 20

7.1. Invitation to the Launch .............................................................................................. 20 7.2. Meeting Logistics ....................................................................................................... 21 7.3 Launch Workshop Design ............................................................................................. 21

7.3.1. Education and Context Setting ........................................................................... 21 7.3.2. Community Design and Organizational Context Sharing .................................... 22

!8. COMMUNITY GROW AND SUSTAIN PHASE ............................................................... 23

8.1. Types of Activities ...................................................................................................... 23 8.2. Community Health Assessment: ............................................................................ 24

!9. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 24 !10. REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 26

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1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TEACH Me Services is a division in the Asian Women’s Welfare Association (AWWA), a Voluntary Welfare Organization (VWO) in Singapore, which aims to assist children and youths with special needs in ultimately maximizing their potential to lead dignified and independent lives within the society. The division consists of three departments: Trans-Disciplinary and Therapy Support (TDTS), Educational and School-Based Support (ESBS), and Social Work, Counseling and Enrichment Support (SWCES). Apart from its key business objectives, TEACH Me Services has expressed its intention to become a research centre in the long run that specializes in major areas of disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy and Autism. With that in mind, the division has adopted an evidence-based practice (EBP) culture that will encourages its employees (i.e. practitioners) to incorporate their respective knowledge and/or expertise area with existing best (or effective) scientific evidences (e.g. therapy and/or assessment methods) in order to resolve the unique problem faced by each case. Such practices highlight the changing role of AWWA in becoming an innovative voluntary welfare organization. However, TEACH Me Services have long been facing with the following challenges: • Little / no formal organisational practices of capturing tacit knowledge, • Lack of knowledge sharing among employees, and • High employee turnover rate. Hence, the team would like to propose in launching a small Community of Practice (CoP) for the practitioners in the TDTS department in TEACH Me Services. It is hope that the implementation of the Community of Practice (CoP) will help TEACH Me Services to overcome the key challenges and ultimately enhances its capability as a research centre in the future. According to Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002), “Communities of Practice (CoPs) are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.” The essence of communities of practice (CoPs), as emphasized by Hubert et al. (2001), is all about groups of people coming together – by a common interest and passion – to share knowledge and learn from one another, be it face-to-face and/or virtually. In a world where knowledge constitutes the most vital and scarce resource, organisations are seeking ever more innovative and economically viable ways to leverage their knowledge for competitive advantage. Similarly to the case of TEACH Me Services, the implementation of the Community of Practice (CoP) will highlight the changing role of AWWA in becoming an innovative voluntary welfare organization. The proposal will describe the Community of Practice (CoP) service and outlines its benefits, key deliverables, strategic roadmaps, methodology, policies, learning activities and health assessments.

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The implementation of the Community of Practice (CoP) consists of five stages – inquiry, design, prototype, launch, and grow/sustain –, which will involve strong collaboration and support from the employees and management in TEACH Me Services and AWWA throughout the entire journey.

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2. INTRODUCTION TO CASE STUDY

2.1. About Asian Women’s Welfare Association (AWWA) Founded in 1970, the Asian Women’s Welfare Association (AWWA) is a Voluntary Welfare Organization (VWO) in Singapore that aims to empower the disadvantaged, which includes the low-income families, the elderly and the disabled (i.e. young individuals with special needs), in maximizing their potential to “lead dignified and independent lives” (AWWA, 2010). AWWA offers specialized services to assist its clients in achieving independence, which includes: • Resource Centre, which contains academic and/or educational materials

(e.g. journals, manuals, conference papers, teaching/learning tools) on various disabilities and learning disorders;

• AWWA School, which provides specialized education for students (i.e. age range between 6 and 18 years old) with physical disabilities (e.g. cerebral palsy) and autism;

• Early Years Centre, which provides intervention for young children (i.e. age range between 1 and 6 years old) with special needs; and

• Integration Services, which aims to integrate students (both children and youths) into mainstream education, employment and society.

Among the four main services highlighted above, Integration Services is known as a core business in driving AWWA to achieve its business strategy. Due to the limitation of time, our research will be focusing on one of the main sub-division of AWWA’s Integration Services – which is, TEACH Me Services.

2.2. TEACH Me Services TEACH Me Services focuses directly on assisting children and youths who are physically disabled but are currently enrolled in mainstream education institutions (i.e. from primary school level to tertiary level). In order for its clients to have a smooth integration into the society, series of interventions are needed to create awareness among its indirect beneficiaries, such as the parents, caregivers, teachers, classmates, and even members of the public. According to AWWA (2010), TEACH Me Services has more than 290 clients to date. Approximately 30 professional staffs, in which majority of them are foreigners, are currently on board and are positioned across three departments within TEACH Me Services: • Trans-Disciplinary and Therapy Support (TDTS), which is responsible

for mobile therapy services (i.e. physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech-language therapy) to clients in either their homes or schools.

• Educational and School-Based Support (ESBS), which is responsible for providing education and school-based support through interventions, such as school visits, educational outings, competency-based programs.

• Social Work, Counseling and Enrichment Support (SWCES), which is responsible for managing new and current cases, providing counseling

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and/or financial support to both clients and their families, as well as, developing enrichment programs to encourage independent living for clients.

Prospective clients are only able to enroll into TEACH Me Services through hospitals’ recommendations. After undergoing a series of assessments and interviews, successful clients will then be regarded as cases. Figure 1 below illustrates the different taxonomies implemented by respective departments in classifying and managing cases. TDTS would segregate the cases into four regions or zones (i.e. North, South, East and West). In contrast, ESBS and SWCES would categorize them based on the mainstream educational levels (i.e. primary level, secondary level and tertiary level). Figure 1: Classification of cases based on geography and mainstream education levels. Cross-departmental collaboration is strongly encouraged, especially when AWWA places high importance on the welfare and success rate of every case. This allows employees with different specialization and expertise to cooperate and devise a solution on how to further integrate the client into society. In addition, TEACH Me Services have recently adopted an evidence-based practice (EBP) culture, which encourages its employees to incorporate their respective knowledge and/or expertise area with existing best (or effective) scientific evidences (e.g. therapy and/or assessment methods) in order to resolve the unique problem faced by each case. Such practices highlight the changing role of AWWA in becoming an innovative voluntary welfare organization.

TDTS Classification System ESBS and SWCES Classification System

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Holding on closely to its aim in empowering and enriching clients’ lives, TEACH Me Services strongly believes in collaborating with other voluntary welfare organizations such as Singapore Disability Sports Council (SDSC).

3. COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE (COP) IMPLEMENTATION FRAMEWORK

3.1. Definition and Rationale of Communities of Practice (CoPs) According to Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2004), “Communities of Practice (CoPs) are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.” The essence of communities of practice (CoPs), as emphasized by Hubert et al. (2001), is all about groups of people coming together – by a common interest and passion – to share knowledge and learn from one another, be it face-to-face and/or virtually. In a world where knowledge constitutes the most vital and scarce resource, organisations are seeking ever more innovative and economically viable ways to leverage their knowledge for competitive advantage. Similarly to the case of TEACH Me Services, the implementation of the Community of Practice (CoP) will highlight the changing role of AWWA in becoming an innovative voluntary welfare organization.

3.2. Five Phases in Building Communities of Practice (CoPs) Unlike formal departments and task forces, communities of practice (CoPs) are dynamic social structures that require “cultivation” so that they can emerge and grow. Hence, it is important to bear in mind that the key factor of defining and sustaining a community of practice (CoP) is the ongoing participating of the community members themselves. Figure 2 below illustrates the CoP Implementation Framework, which will be used throughout the project. The framework consists of five phases – inquiry, design, prototype, launch, and grow/sustain –, which will involve strong collaboration and support from the employees and management in TEACH Me Services and AWWA.

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Figure 2: Community of practice (CoP) implementation framework.

3.2.1. Phase 1: Inquiry Phase 1 is a stage of exploration and inquiry, in which several important elements – i.e. audience, purpose, strategic goals, and vision for the community – will be identified. In this phase, a needs assessment will be conducted first to gather inputs from other employees about its intention to implement a community of practice (CoP), as well as other factors (e.g. CoP benefits, organisational issues) in TEACH Me Services. The assessment may be conducted through informal discussions, formal interviews, surveys, and/or focus groups. The data collected will help to clearly define the benefits of the community, major topic areas for community content, and vision, mission statement and goals of community. An estimate of the costs for community technology, special technical development, facilitation, and support will be created as well. In addition, the recruitment of members into the core team will commence to represent the community audience.

3.2.2. Phase 2: Design Phase 2 is a design stage that involves defining the activities, technologies, group processes, and roles that will support the community’s goals. In this phase, the newly recruited core team members will brainstorm and design the community by: • Identifying the roles of community members, as well as, the tasks/activities

that they would to like to carry out in the community • Laying out tentative schedule for community meetings (i.e. weekly,

monthly or annual basis) • Creating timeline for the community’s development • Identifying the any face-to-face meeting opportunities (i.e. guest speakers)

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• Exploring appropriate technologies that will help to facilitate community meetings, manage documents/discussions and encourage ongoing participation.

3.2.3. Phase 3: Prototype Phase 3, the prototype stage, involves initiating a pilot community with a select group of key stakeholders. In this phase, the team will be able to test for assumptions and refine the strategy by: • Selecting the most appropriate technology to support the goals of the pilot

community. • Designing the community environment and have a group test the

functionality through case scenarios. • Implementing the pilot community and giving access to the core team and

pilot audience. • Seeding the community with content. • Facilitating events and activities to exercise the prototype, focusing on

achieving short-term, value-added goals. • Ensuring that roles are clear and that support structures are in place. • Measuring success and reporting on the results of the prototype to

sponsors and stakeholders.

3.2.4. Phase 4: Launch Phase 4 is the launch stage where the community is rolled out to a broader audience over a period of time in ways that engage new members and deliver immediate benefits. In other words, the community members are ready to recruit new members to the community. In this phase, the community members will use the experience and results from the prototype phase to improve and promote the community environment to wider audience. Community charter, which includes the mission, vision, goals, and member norms and agreements, are clearly established and articulated among the new recruits. Not to mention, an orientation will be provided to briefly educate the new recruits about communities of practice (CoP).

3.2.5. Phase 5: Grow and Sustain The final phase focuses more on growing and sustaining the community. The grow phase involves strategies in engaging members in collaborative learning and knowledge sharing activities, group projects, and networking events that meet individual, group, and organizational goals while creating an increasing cycle of participation and contribution. On the other hand, the sustain phase involves strategies in cultivating and assessing performance of the community in order to plan new strategies, goals, activities, roles, technologies, and business models for the future.

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4. COMMUNITY INQUIRY PHASE

4.1. Needs Assessment A needs assessment was first conducted, in the form of a face-to-face and email interviews, with the employees and management of TEACH Me Services. The main objective of the needs assessment is to evaluate the viability of implementing the community of practice within the division. To achieve the objective, the following areas are explored: • What are the issues or challenges that are currently facing in TEACH Me

Services? • What does the employees think or feel about establishing a community of

practice? • What do the employees wish to see in the community of practice? The results have highlighted that TEACH Me Services manages a lot of tacit knowledge. However, the division is currently facing with three major challenges. The first challenge is the lack in implementation of organisational practices of capturing tacit knowledge. Despite the division managing tacit knowledge through formal meetings and informal conversations, there are currently no defined or standardized procedures/systems that allows valuable tacit knowledge to be converted explicitly, captured and stored for future use. Hence, it is difficult for practitioners to work effectively and efficiently as knowledge needed tend to be lost within TEACH Me Services. The second challenge is with regards to knowledge sharing among employees. As mentioned earlier, TEACH Me Services has recently adopted an evidence-based practice (EBP) culture, which promotes the value of collaboration, continuous learning and knowledge sharing among its employees – by encouraging practitioners to incorporate their respective knowledge and/or expertise area with existing best (or effective) scientific evidences (e.g. therapy and/or assessment methods) in order to resolve the unique problem faced by each case. Despite the employees being receptive of the idea, most find it very difficult to share knowledge as the division has yet to implement an appropriate time and space for them to do so. Due to the implementation of the mobile service, practitioners (especially the therapists from TDTS department) are constantly visiting their clients in their schools or homes for therapy or follow-up sessions. Hence, they are rarely seen in the office and have little time to converse with other practitioners except for during formal weekly and semi-annual departmental meetings. The third challenge is the high employee turnover rate in TEACH Me Services. High employee turnover is an organisational problem as it associated with high organisational memory loss – i.e. when employees leave, valuable knowledge will leave as well. However, this posed to be a very serious issue for TEACH Me Services especially since the division does not practice much in capturing tacit knowledge.

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Based on the results from the needs assessment, it is hoped that the community of practice (CoP) will be able to benefit the members, as well as, TEACH Me Services as a whole by: • Having formal systems of capturing tacit knowledge, • Creating the appropriate time and space for community members to share

knowledge, and • Retaining current employees (in term of their knowledge), as well as,

motivating newcomers (in terms of coping with work performance). In addition, the community identity is defined. As this would be the first time TEACH Me Services is being introduced to the CoP concept, the team would like to start the initiative by implementing the community to practitioners in the TDTS department. Compared to the two departments (i.e. ESBS, SWCES, the practitioners from TDTS department seems to be experiencing these challenges the most.

4.2. Community Identity The identity of the community of practice (CoP) consists of three key elements: domain (i.e. what is the community about), community (i.e. who should be involved in the community), and practice (i.e. what knowledge is to be shared, developed and documented).

4.2.1. Domain The community aims to build up the capabilities and establish a network among the practitioners in TEACH Me Services, who are involved in dealing with existing and new cases.

4.2.2. Community The community primarily targeted at practitioners in the TDTS department (i.e. psychologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech-language therapists), who are involved in designing effective and appropriate solutions for each case’s problem, which are seen through and evaluated through several follow-ups.

4.2.3. Practice The various case studies and issues that are currently facing or discussing at local and international context, with a particular focus on enhancing welfare and success of clients in TEACH Me Services.

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4.3. Organizational Strategy and Value Apart from sharing knowledge and learning, the essence of communities of practice (CoPs) is to build the strategic capabilities within the organisation. In order to institutionalise the community’s existence and sustain its lifecycle, the community must strategically be well positioned and integrated within TEACH Me Services by ensuring that: • The community of practice is aligned with knowledge management and/or

business strategies, • The community of practice is linked to other key initiatives within TEACH

Me Services, • The community of practice is used as a central feature of knowledge

management, and • The community of practice is selected on the basis of business opportunity

and is constantly linked to TEACH Me Services strategies.

4.3.1. Vision and Expected Outcomes In the short-run, the community aims to help helping with current challenges faced and providing expertise to fellow practitioners in TEACH Me Services. This can achieve by attempting to integrate the community into the division’s key initiatives (e.g. major projects). As illustrated in Figure 3 below, the community members can act as advisors and assist project teams in solving various issues and challenges. At the end of the project, the project teams will share their outcomes and learning points with the community. Knowledge dynamics (i.e. sharing and exchanging knowledge) as very strong as there are two-ways learning. Hence, community members will be able to enhance the necessary skills, which will be beneficial at work.

Figure 3: Integration of community of practice (CoP) to business projects.

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Envisioning that the community members have strongly build up their capabilities and expertise during the short-run, the community will then aim to develop innovative solutions to address upcoming or new cases’ problems in the mid-run. Further ahead in the long term, the body of knowledge accumulated from the mid-run can build TEACH Me Service’s capabilities to becoming a leading research centre that specialises in major disabilities areas (e.g. Cerebral Palsy, Autism). Such an established body of knowledge can also help to create a better identity for the non-profit (NP) industry in Singapore.

4.3.2. Sponsorship and Organizational Issues • Sponsorship The Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports (MCYS) will provide sponsorship to support TEACH Me Services and the community. This commitment to sponsorship is very strong, as MCYS is a constant grantor for AWWA. • Budget The budget for the community will directly come from the management, which is provided annually by MCYS. • Support Employees and management in TEACH Me Services will provide the manpower support for running the community. Employees in TEACH Me Services can support the community by either being community members, guest speakers on transactional basis and/or project teams that requires assistance or advices. The management, on the other hand, can provide both financial (i.e. through budgeting) and non-financial (i.e. meeting logistics) support to the community. • Technology Apart from its corporate website, TEACH Me Service has an Intranet, which employees usually used in their day-to-day work routine. However, TEACH Me Services does not employ sophisticated enterprise platforms and technologies (i.e. synchronous and asynchronous) such as SharePoint or online community. Thus, the community members need to conduct a review to evaluate the current technological needs for both the community and TEACH Me Services. • Organisational Enabler or Barrier In this case, the community itself is an enabler for community members to handle cases effectively and efficiently. This, in turn, will boost the overall

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performance and strategic capabilities of TEACH Me Services and AWWA as the whole. There are currently no major barriers identified. With respect to technological issues, the community needs to conduct a needs assessment to review its current technologies.

4.3.3. Current Success Factors and Risks • Current Success Factors There is a common interest, passion and commitment among the practitioners in TEACH Me Services in the welfare and success of each case. Hence, there is a genuine need for an appropriate time and space for practitioners to converse, share their problems, and find/accumulate resources to solve these issues. High level of collaboration among practitioners are also seen in weekly and semi-annual departmental meetings, which are currently used as a common ground and space to discuss about problems and exchange ideas and possible solutions to address them. In addition, the recent adoption of evidence-based practice (EBP) culture has further encourages knowledge sharing and continuous learning among practitioners. • Risks/Failure Factors Even though employees are open to the proposal, issues such as having little/no formal practices in capturing tacit knowledge as well as the tight schedules of practitioners may be challenging when starting a community. Hence, community members must consider these challenges when designing, launching and implementing learning activities and technologies within the community. Success will require a long-term commitment as well, which may be a problem at the organizational level without the support from the management. In addition, quick wins are not easy to find or demonstrate. However, if the community is successfully designed to promote integration with key initiatives (e.g. projects), this will provide community members an opportunity and drive to collaborate and deal with real-time business challenges/issues. Not only the skills of community members will be enhanced, the community itself will ultimately evolved to become a knowledge hub. Such success stories can be used to boost the community’s value, as well as, to institutionalise its existence within TEACH Me Services.

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5. COMMUNITY DESIGN PHASE

5.1. Community Cultivation There are several elements that community members need to consider in order to cultivate a community of practice within an organisation: forms of participation, orientation profile, learning activities, community roles, and technology.

5.1.1. Forms of Participation

Figure 4: Forms of participation • Core Group The core group consists of a community leader, a technology steward, and other core team members. • Active Group In the active group, there will be experts and active members. Experts are usually experienced practitioners who have longed stay or work in TEACH Me Services. Active members are members who actively participated in the community activities and meetings. Apart from the active members, some core members may drift to the active group. • Occasional Group The occasional group consists of newcomers, be it new or existing employee, who have just joined the community.

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• Peripheral Group Some of the newcomers may drop to the peripheral group if they find the community not beneficial to them or doe not addressing the issues that relevant to their work. • Transactional Group Non-TDTS employees and other voluntary welfare organisations (e.g. MINDS, Autism Association) can be considered in the transactional groups – i.e. non-community members who are invited to the community as guest speakers on a transactional basis.

5.1.2. Orientation Profile • Meetings Community meetings will be held every second Saturdays of each month in AWWA Headquarters (Singapore). These meetings will be conducted in a form of face-to-face, which is an effective approach in learning and sharing knowledge. In typical meetings, community members will share and discuss current issues and case studies around a particular topic or theme. Meeting minutes will be documented and published on the Intranet for online asynchronous exchanges between community members. • Projects Community members feel the need to collaborate and “do” things together in order to learn and benefit from the community. Hence, strong interest, passion and commitment are needed to support these collaborative activities. Projects undertaken during meetings are normally in the form of discussion of case studies and issues faced at local and/or international contexts. At times, the community members may also act as advisors and assist project teams in case’s problems. As community members are becoming more familiar/confident with their roles and capabilities, they will be motivated to take undertake challenging projects such as creating outputs for members and other employees in TEACH Me Services to help make better decisions (e.g. newsletters, publications, etc.).

• Access to Expertise As the employees in TEACH Me Services are constantly dealing with the welfare of the clients (i.e. cases), the community members are in need to get rapid access to information and advice. After several meetings, community members will be able to identify and declare their expertise. In addition, the community will sometimes invite outside experts, from non-TDTS departments in TEACH Me Services and/or other voluntary welfare organisations (e.g. MINDS, The Spastic Children's Association of Singapore, Autism Association, etc.) on a transactional basis. These outside experts have existing and close

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networks with TEACH Me Services and thus, will be familiar with the community.

• Relationships The community members will be drawn to the community due to the opportunities provided – i.e. the opportunity for members to learn from and connect with other experienced practitioners. It also seems that the practitioners in TEACH Me Services have a relatively close relationship among each other due to the common interest, passion and commitment in the welfare and success of the cases. Hence, these elements will positively impact on the level of trust and collaboration in the community. • Individual Participation Since the idea of implementing the community is relatively new in TEACH Me Services, the expectations in individual participation among community members is low. For now, the community is created to be as open as possible in order for community members to be familiar with how it is run. However, the expectation of individual participation (i.e. participating in meetings and/or online discussions) among community members will increase over time.

• Context As mentioned earlier, the goal of the community is to build up the capabilities and establish a network among the practitioners in TEACH Me Services in order to solve each case’s problem successfully. With that in mind, the community is created to facilitate openness in learning and sharing knowledge among community members. Community activities will be designed to integrate, as closely as possible, with practitioners’ work. In addition, the activities and initiatives undertaken are considered to help promote the community’s visibility within TEACH Me Services.

• Community Cultivation There is an important need to constantly track the health of the community in order to increase its cultivation and sustainability within TEACH Me Services. Formal feedback systems and After-Action Reviews (AARs) are good approaches implemented, at the end of the meeting sessions and/or significant events, by the community to keep track of the community’s health performance, as well as, the usefulness of content shared. Data gathered from these approaches will be used in renewing the community’s activities, technologies and strategies.

• Content Publishing Content (e.g. documents, journals, case studies, etc.) shared and discussed among the community members will be frequently published in the corporate Intranet. This will allow the community members to constantly be kept updated about the community at any time and space. Non-members will also

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be able to see the brief summaries of the meetings (along with the owners of the documents), which will help to promote the community’s existence in TEACH Me Services. However, there may be a need to apply levels of access control between the core team, community members and non-members.

• Open-Ended Conversation The themes are designed/selected to be very broad in order to encourage ongoing open-ended conversations among community members. Interesting learning points or quotes from these conversations will be captured in a summarized format and shared via the Intranet. However, a formal repository is needed to archive these conversations to ensure that community members will be able to access it at any time and place.

5.1.3. Learning Activities There are many learning activities that the community can choose to implement during meetings and carries different purposes: exchanges, productive inquiries, building shared understanding, producing assets, creating standards, formal access to knowledge and visits. The community can first start implementing informal learning activities to create a sense of openness and familiarity among the community members. Firstly, community members can build a shared understanding by implementing hot topics discussions. Every meeting, community members will contribute topics they think would be interesting or important to discuss in the community and write them in post-it. At the end of the session, the community members will share and vote for the hot topics to discuss. Community members can also share case studies, news and personal stories to facilitate ongoing exchanges of knowledge within the community. In addition, community members can apply After-Action Reviews (AARs) at the end of the meeting sessions and/or significant events to keep track of the community’s health performance. The community can also implement formal learning activities to recognize the members’ contribution, and ultimately increase the community’s existence in TEACH Me Services. Community members can act as advisor and undertake learning projects by working together with projects teams in solving real-time issues. This will further enhanced the members’ capabilities, which will positively impacted their work performances. As the community members becomes familiar and comfortable in the community, they will be able to organise trainings and workshops, invite guest speakers and other initiatives that enables formal access to knowledge within TEACH Me Services. In addition, they will undertake projects – i.e. producing outputs (e.g. newsletters, publications, etc.) – for members and other employees in TEACH Me Services to help make better decisions.

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5.1.4. Community Roles • Community Leader The community leader is a person who intentionally leads in the cultivation and sustainability of the community. Apart from having great passion, the community leader should be a practitioner with a very good reputation in the community and has great interpersonal skills. The roles of the community leader involve organizing and structuring community learning activities, energising participation among members, maintaining the rhythm of community, as well as, bridging connections with the sponsors, management and the community.

• Technology Steward The technology steward is a person who bridges the technical aspects of online platforms and the needs of the community. Apart from having adequate experience in the workings of the community, the technology steward should has a good understanding and interest of technologies. He also need to work need to work alongside with the IT experts to implement appropriate technologies/platforms according to the needs of the community. • Core Group Members The core group members are the ones who care about the community and are willing to help the community leader in cultivating the community. They help to sustain the community by actively organizing and/or participating in the community activities, and contributing to build the knowledge base by providing subject matter expertise. Core group members are also considered to be the community’s champions as they help newcomers in familiarising with the workings of the community, as well as, promote the community to the non-members in TEACH Me Services. Hence, they are the best people to create stronger sense of personal ownership and belongingness among the community members.

• Subject Matter Experts Subject matter experts are experienced practitioners who are very knowledgeable in their areas of expertise. Apart from being domain experts, they should be highly respected among peers in TEACH Me Services and are prepared to invest more time and efforts in the community. Their primary role would be to act as advisers to the community members. • Facilitator The facilitator should possess excellent facilitating skills and has a natural ability to facilitate dynamic dialogues and interactions face-to-face and/or virtually. Apart from having good interpersonal skills, he or she must be enthusiastic, as well as have a positive sense of humor and a “can do” attitude. The facilitator must also have an ability to manage group conflicts.

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• Broker The broker, who has memberships from multiple communities, helps to bridge knowledge from other communities to the community in TEACH Me Services. Apart from being the community’s representative, the broker should have an open and sociable personality and is keen to meet/network with members from multiple communities. In addition, he or she should be comfortable sharing his perspectives learned from other communities.

5.1.5. Technology Emails and phones are commonly used as individual tools and group tools for collaboration and communication purposes. The corporate Intranet is used to asynchronously update both members and non-members about the community. However, there are currently no tools for reification and synchronous purposes.

6. COMMUNITY PROTOTYPE PHASE

6.1. Discovery and Preparation

6.1.1. Setting Pre-launch Committee The core team aims to initiate the pilot community to the practitioners from the TDTS department in TEACH Me Services (i.e. the same group of people that the actual community wishes to build around, as mentioned in the community identity). In this case, the community members are considered as central to the pilot community while the employees and experienced therapists are considered as supporting members. The network will gradually expand to the rest of departments in TEACH Me Services as the community grows over time. Practitioners from various fields within the TDTS department – i.e. physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech-language therapy and psychology – are encouraged to be involved. Considering the mobile nature of the practitioners, it would be convenient to conduct the community meetings and launch events in the AWWA Headquarters. Ideally, at least two or three representatives from each field in the TDTS department should be present. Senior doctors and other employees in TEACH Me Services are invited for the pre-launch meeting. Members from the Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports (MCYS) will also be invited for the launch, as it has been a major support for both AWWA and the community.

6.1.2. Overall Approach to the Launch Event The core team will opt for a whole community launch based on two reasons:

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• There is a strong identity associated with the community domain, and • The community membership is clearly defined – i.e. practitioners from the

TDTS department are eligible to join. The only obstacle is trying to reach out to connect as many targeted practitioners as possible for the launch. The community is projected to cover the entire organisation as time progresses. To begin, the community will conduct regular meetings on the second Saturday in each month. During meetings, all community members should get equal opportunities to freely discuss and solve problems among one another, as well as, learning from each other. In addition, the community is intended to enhance members’ networks by connecting with other experienced practitioners within TEACH Me Services and/or the non-profit industry.

6.1.3. Preliminary Assessment of Participants Having a clear understanding on the profile of the prospective community members is needed beforehand in order to reach out to them more effectively, and ultimately helps in acknowledging the potential of the collaboration and community. Some education is necessary as the prospective community members are very unfamiliar with in the concept of communities of practice (CoPs). So, the opening speech should address the importance of community and their burning issues at hand, preferably by the core team leader. The problems and issues that the sectors point out are as follows: • Lack of collaboration • No proper document maintained

In addition, the community leader will have to be identified. The Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports (MCYS) will also be taking on the role of sponsor with the higher management from TEACH Me Services and AWWA as the advisory board.

7. COMMUNITY LAUNCH PHASE

7.1. Invitation to the Launch Apart from members in the pre-launch committee and core team, the entire TDTS department will receive an invitation for the community launch. Invitation will be mailed to the sponsor (i.e. MCYS) and the advisory board members (i.e. higher management from TEACH Me Services and AWWA). The invitation will be also be pasted onto notice boards for non-members in TEACH Me Services are welcome to come and participate in the launch event.

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7.2. Meeting Logistics The core team will prepare the agenda of the launch event. There will also be a facilitator and emcee of the event, as well. High management from TEACH Me Services/AWWA and the Sponsor will be the honoured guest speakers for the event. Core team leader will open the event with a brief general introduction on the community. Facilitator will then share the idea of the community and explain the plan to the team members. Time will be allocated to the opening speaker and the guest speaker for their respective speeches.

The conference room in TEACH ME Services has been fixed as the official venue for the event. The core team will arrange the refreshments.

7.3 Launch Workshop Design

7.3.1. Education and Context Setting The education and context setting is devised to ensure that the community is steered towards a focused purpose and ensuring that the members are properly introduced. In this case, the core team leader will provide a brief introduction on communities of practice (CoPs) for the benefit of new members who may not have the prior knowledge on the concept. Not only it creates a platform for exchanging ideas, but it is also a platform for acquiring new knowledge. • The Opening Based on the launch workshop design stated earlier, one of the core members will deliver a brief introduction to notable members and guests as a precursor in setting to the tone of the meeting. This will be follow by the core team leader, who will give a speech on how the community will benefit the members and the reasons on the importance of members’ participation. The history behind the formation of the community and the main players of the core group will also be shared. • Sharing on Communities of Practice (CoPs) In terms of providing a common understanding on the community, the new members and guests will be given a basic presentation on how the community operates and the types of group rules that they need to adhere to. Information shared would be brief; the sole purpose is to provide them a basic understanding on community of practice (CoPs) without confusing them further with complicated concepts.

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• Getting to Know Each Other Once the introduction process is completed, members are given ample time to get to know other members through the “Getting-To-Know-You” refreshment session. A quick introduction of individuals will be given, with opportunities of sharing each individual's personal projects and expertise.

7.3.2. Community Design and Organizational Context Sharing A suggestion form will be collected at the end of the event in order to understand the needs of the members and how the community can be further improved. Questions, such as frequency of meetings and preferred community activities, will be asked in the suggestion form. Members can also provide valuable suggestions on how the community can be further improved. Actions will be taken and follow in the subsequent meetings. The practitioners from the TDTS department will form the core member group. Experts (e.g. chief doctors) from the TDTS department, which may or may not be a community member, will open each regular meeting with an inspiring speech. The core group would enable a multi-faceted approach covering areas from case studies to academic studies. The Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports (MCYS) will provide sponsorship for the community. • Overall Flow of the Community The launch event will be conduct as a full day event. The session will begin with a brief introduction of the community and refreshment session, followed by talks from senior practitioners from the TDTS department who would welcome and share with fellow members on the best practices. There will be a “Getting-To-Know-You” refreshment session at the beginning, as well as, dinner at the end. This social activity would allow fellow community members, practitioners and experts to interact and network within the community. The session will end by getting initial feedback form from all the members of the day. • Post Launch Follow-Up

Category Comments

Possible activities

The meeting is will conduct on second Saturday of every month. As space build up, the community can split into sub-groups within the TDTS department.

Sponsorship The Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports (MCYS) will provide sponsorship for the community.

Resources Core team will take care of refreshment during launch day. However, sponsorship is needed for refreshment during community meetings.

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Assessment Meeting minutes will be taken and follow-up actions to problems faced would be noted.

Support Members’ participation, collaboration and commitment are need to support the community growth.

Technology Technology steward will upload the summary of the event in corporate Intranet website, for now. However, as the community grows over time, As a separate website for the community will be developed.

8. COMMUNITY GROW AND SUSTAIN PHASE

8.1. Types of Activities • Open Conversations The themes are selected to be very broad in order to encourage ongoing open-ended conversations among community members. Interesting learning points or quotes from these conversations will be capture in a summarized format. However, all members who attended the community are free to voice out their opinions and views on the matters being discussed with no restrictions. In addition, a formal repository is need to archive these conversations to ensure that community members will be able to access it at any time and place. • Motivation Speeches In the launch event, the core team leader will give an inspiration speech about the community. This will then be followed up in the regular community meetings by inviting a guest speaker to come and encourage the prospective members to participate and involve more in community. As TEACH Me Services is part of a non-profit organisation, low employee turnover is envisioned. To further reduce the division’s turnover, the community must ensure that the wellness/needs of the prospective members are fulfilled. Not to mention, continuous encouragement is needed. • World Café World Café is a good approach for producing multiple perspectives on a topic, to support brainstorming and problem solving among the members. This approach is very useful in finding the common ground or mediating differences among the members, as well as, creating a common vision. It is very ideal for idea generation and issue exploration, especially when the community is actively helping the project teams in project-related issues. By involving in the World Café, sense of collaboration among community members (and project teams) will increase.

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• Case Studies The community can encourage knowledge sharing and learning by providing an appropriate space for the members to share their case studies. Community members can share both cases that are current and/or have been solved. Any issues and suggestion in solving the following cases can be share during the event. All members are expected to contribute by providing valuable ideas, insights and suggestions during the community meetings.

• Fish Bowl Technique The Fish Bowl technique is an excellent approach that facilitate knowledge exchange among expert and novice practitioners in a form of dialogue. Each group has an opportunity to discuss the issue while the other group observes, much like looking at the fish in a fish bowl. The facilitator is responsible for encouraging discussion during the small group discussion, keeping the discussion only among the inner circle, and then drawing out individual and group reactions during the combined discussion later. The structure of the Fish Bowl technique helps to avoid tensions and conflicts from constant direct confrontations between the experts and novices, which can be very unhealthy for the community. If facilitated properly, the technique will encourage ongoing participation, as well as, allow both groups (especially the novice practitioners) to gather valuable insights and boost their problem-solving capabilities.

8.2. Community Health Assessment: In order to track the health of the community, the following events will take place: • Regular updates about meeting, workshops, events and addition of new

members will be mail and present to the community members as well as the sponsors/high management.

• Opinions from the members will be collected at the end of every meetings, to ensure community’s renewal (i.e. in this case, any improvements and requests will be followed up in the next meeting).

• Conducting feedback session, in the form of surveys, will be helpful to understand the member’s needs and work performance (i.e. how far has these community meetings helped in their regular work).

• Shared contents, including the brief summaries of meetings, will be recorded and documented properly for future use.

9. CONCLUSION Knowledge only has true value when it is shared. A community of practice (CoP) is the place where knowledge come as a bud to the needed person and

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gets blossom in right hand and gives fruitful result at right time. Organisations are a good learning field for several reasons: • They have motivation and resource to move up the learning curve quickly • The experience of work-related communities of pratice will help the

members to take leadership in creating similar structures in others part of their lives at work.

“Firms that understand how to translate the power of communities into successful knowledge organisation will be the architects of tomorrow – not only because they will be more successful in the market-place, but also because they will serve as a learning laboratory for exploring how to design the world as learning system” (Wenger et.al., 2002). In other words, the authors addressed that communities of practice (CoPs) will help the organisation adapt to emerging threats and opportunities of new economy in several ways. The value of communities is not only to manage the knowledge resource, but also to help organisation succeed in a highly competitive economy.

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10. REFERENCES AWWA. (2010). Asian Women’s Welfare Association: annual report 2010 – 2011. Singapore: AWWA. Hubert et. al. (2001). Building effective communities. Henley Knowledge Management Forum. Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., and Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice, a guide to managing knowledge. Massachusetts: Harvard Business Press.