Using Social Network Analysis to Improve Communities of Practice By Rob Cross,Tim Laseter,Andrew Parker and Guillermo Velasquez

Developing a Sense-and-Respond Capability

Creating a healthy community requires more than simply facilitating the ?ow of information. A network needs to sense and respond to crises or opportunities dynamically. To do so, members of the community must be aware of expertise distributed throughout the network-not just the knowledge and skills of those currently accessed for problem solving.

Certain employees might not be getting information from others at a given point due to existing project demands; however, being aware of colleagues' knowledge and skills improves performance as they are able to tap into the most relevant expertise when projects shift. This awareness of colleagues' expertise can be mapped to provide a view of a latent network-not those currently tapped for information, but the people who might be sought out when circumstances change.

Driving Planned and Emergent Innovation

Although communities of practice often focus on sharing current best practices, all CoPs have the potential to help drive product or process innovation. SNA can help identify the degree of integration of certain skills and competencies and how overall network patterns facilitate or inhibit innovation. For some time, research has drawn attention to how an organization's existing knowledge affects its ability to recognize and take action on new information and opportunities.

SNA allows one to visualize the distribution of expertise in information and decision-making networks and to see if a speci?c point of view or competency (often one that contributed to past organizational success) garners disproportionate attention. Such dominant paradigms can in?uence what information gets attention and which opportunities warrant action in a way that undermines desired innovation or inappropriately drives innovation along a traditional trajectory.