When an organization starts to manage its knowledge to attain
competitive advantage, one key initiative would be to foster the formation
of communities of practice around the core knowledge of the organization.
Although communities of practice generally grow spontaneously around
personal relationships, it is important that organizations create a condition
conducive for such growth to occur. Once in existence, there will be need to
manage such communities of practice in order to optimize their contribution
and help ensure their success. There will also be need to have the goals of
the communities of practice aligned with the goals of the organization.
Unless there is convergence of objectives, the outputs of the communities of
practice would be of little use to the organization. In other words, the impact
of communities of practice would be severely limited if they lack strategic
relevance for the organization.