Posts Tagged "evaluation"

Something got us excited in a strategic meeting with Executive Networks the other day in San Francisco. Executive Networks is a company that builds communities of practice for executives mainly in HR. The Community Directors were very appreciative of our Assessment Framework. They were particularly taken by the value-creation matrix (Figure 7.1, page 39). They liked the idea of integrating quantitative indicators and narratives of value creation and the fact that the usefulness of the framework is both retrospective (what learning a communities has enabled) and prospective (what learning a community may enable). In other words, the framework can be used to account for the value of an existing community and also to imagine the development of a community through...

Should communities of practice attempt to assess or measure the value they create? The issue of measurement and assessment is a controversial one when it comes to communities. Some see measurements as community killers and some see them as the only way communities can survive in organizations. The reality of most communities is more nuanced. While it is true that red tape can harm a community, some awareness of the value created can also inspire members and legitimize their participation and personal investment. And while demonstrating value to an organization is important to ensure support and sponsorship, trying to measure everything is not always the best way to make the value of a community understandable. This calls for a very pragmatic attitude. Communities...

As communities and networks go more mainstream there is an increasing demand from organizations to have ways of monitoring their value. How can we make the connection between the activities of a community and the improved performance of the organization? In our value assessment framework, published by the Open University of the Netherlands, we identify five levels of value creation of a community or network: Cycle 1. Immediate value: the activities and interactions between members have value in and of themselves Cycle 2. Potential value: the activities and interactions of cycle 1 may not be realized immediately, but rather be saved up as knowledge capital whose value is in its potential to be realized later. Cycle 3. Applied value: knowledge capital...