Super Community of Practice

The Super Community of practice is made up of people around ANU who are interested in the context and challenges associated with resourcing communities of practice [1] and generally building collaborative culture at ANU.

The community started in February 2007, and has been meeting on a fortnightly basis since then. Initially people needed practical information on setting-up, managing and sustaining communities of practice. At a personal level this translated to also having to develop the necessary capabilities to do it. People wanted to explore different processes and approaches to managing and facilitating groups and their interactions. 

Super CoP does focus on participating in a group, and on group and individual learning [2] through problem-solving, asking questions, listening, observing, reflecting, and giving and receiving feedback. Another distinctive aspect is that there is a focus on group learning and ideas of practice, personal agency and distributed leadership [3].

Members have been able to apply the skills & knowledge from Super CoP into their practice through:

• using distributed leadership within learning communities;
• showing more leadership in their work place and in committees;
• running some teaching and learning activities as communities of practice;
• applying Super CoP skills and knowledge to their research; and
• starting-up new communities of practice, and resourcing continuing communities.

There are three distinct dimensions to capability development [4] in the Super Community of Practice which are outlined below.

Process facilitation

People reflecting on how effectively the work is actually done by the community and learning the most from the process (experience), so that subsequent group work becomes even more rewarding. Specific strategies to build these skills and habits have included:

• using capable process facilitators as role models;
• members observing others doing process facilitation;
• rotating process facilitation responsibilities amongst community members;
• mentoring and coaching  members in specific skills;
• lessons learnt sessions following group work to objectively assess the quality or completion of  the task, and importantly how it was progressed; and
• reflection by individuals and the group about process design and management.

Dialogue

Super CoP promotes participatory interaction based around dialogue. Dialogue is qualitatively different form of engagement from debate, as it is essentially collaborative. In essence dialogue involves three qualities—suspension, inquiry and generative listening.

Suspension requires that an individual to let go of attachment to or investment in an idea, feeling, or belief. Instead they allow the community as a whole to consider it and together reflect on what is there from many different perspectives. 

Inquiry depends on the community making an open space from which to ask questions about where a particular idea or belief came from. Surprisingly, in every day life, our conversations are often underpinned by assumptions we have never examined. It is a powerful intervention to reconsider what has led to certain ways of thinking or to the formation of our mental models.

Generative listening—learning to listen for understanding rather than listening for difference, or for argument. This form of listening requires an opening, rather than closing down of being.

Reflection

Personal and group reflection has been actively practised in the Super Community of Practice. It is an interactive interpretation of our professional contexts and the university environment, and provides a vital bridge for members to integrate new knowledge and skills into action.

Through Super Community people manifest subtle changes—gradual shifts in personal practice—the trialling of approaches, ideas, practices—from which people determine what they will incorporate into their repertoire.

In an all too busy workplace, Super Community of Practice offers people the space to engage, think and reflect about their work and the shared context of ANU.  It assists to translate our cultural understanding into individual and group knowledge and from there into strategic action..

Current membership includes: 

For information about Super Community of Practice, please contact Andrea Benson [5] at CEDAM.