Adopting a maturity model for communities of practice in an engineering industry

This paper proposes in adopting a model of assessing the level of maturity in communities of practices (CoPs) in organisations. The model is based on theoretical development attained from the analysis of previous CoP frameworks proposed in the existing literature. Using this approach, we adopted nine main elements in leadership, organisational, technological and performance dimensions in auditing the CoP ‘health’ in organisations. Systematically understanding the current position and examining practised activities, a maturity stage of a CoP was established. By adopting this model, a holistic, systematic, and comprehensive framework with different maturity stages for navigating CoPs were built, to develop a road map for moving from a potential to a self-sustaining level, examine inconsistent activities to mature, and devise structured action plans aligned to strategic organisational initiatives. This action research project was based on a qualitative case study design that was conducted via observations and participation in the brainstorming sessions, with main units of analysis being CoPs. The objective was achieved by adopting a maturity model of CoPs based on the key dimensions and studying actual experiences in a six (6) year old CoP of engineers in the Public Works Department of Malaysia, integrated with this model. Although the study is exploratory in nature, the evaluation methodology is unique. Based on the results of the study, we can implement this benchmarking tool to investigate the characteristics of a CoP in different settings and ‘growth’ stages and eventually determine a correlation between community maturity levels and organised performance.