Inside and Across Boundaries
The Communities of Practice might exist within a business unit or stretch across the divisional boundaries and most of them cross the boundaries between the organisations. The following are the businesses across different boundaries:
- Within the businesses: When the communities of practice arise, people will address the recurring sets of problems together. Communities of practice speeds up the constant flow of information. The "communal memory" will help the work related to the business to be done without having to remember everything by the members.
- Across the business units: Vital knowledge is often distributed throughout the various business units. People who work in the cross functional teams often form communities of practice to keep in touch with the peers in different parts of the company and also maintain the expertise. Consider a big chemical company where the safety managers from each business units interact regularly to solve problems and also develop the common guidelines, the tools, the standards, the procedures and also the documents.
- Across the organisation boundaries: The CoP is not always bound by the company affiliation. By emphasising on the extended enterprises which often become useful precisely by crossing the organisational boundaries. For example, in fast moving industries like the computer hard drives, the engineers who work for the suppliers and the buyers usually form the community of practice to keep up with the constant changes in the technology although it is not part of the job description.