Communities of Practice: Knowledge Sharing at Elfin Sports Car Company

This report analyzes the implementation of Communities of Practice (CoPs) within Elfin Sports Car, an Australian automotive manufacturer, focusing on how CoPs can foster knowledge sharing and innovation to achieve the goal of designing powerful and eco-friendly sports cars. The report begins by mapping organizational knowledge and identifying existing informal CoPs, specifically pinpointing groups with similar skill sets, individuals working towards common goals, and those already engaged in skill and task sharing. It then outlines the steps to create a formal CoP, including establishing an electronic meeting place with shared storage, group mailing capabilities, version control, and permission sets. The report emphasizes the importance of inviting members, publicizing the CoP, encouraging varied participation levels, planning regular contact, and planning for the group's eventual disbandment upon achieving its objectives. The CoP's focus is on reducing carbon emissions and pollution through innovative car designs, involving automotive engineers, R&D staff, shareholders, customers, and government suppliers. The report highlights the utilization of cloud storage, Google Drive, group email, and version control systems to facilitate effective communication, collaboration, and knowledge management within the CoP. The ultimate aim is to leverage collective expertise to design sports cars that are both high-performing and environmentally sustainable.

Communities of Practice
Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................1
1. Map organisational knowledge and identify existing informal CoPs..........................................1
a. Identify groups of people that have similar skill sets.........................................................1
b. Identify people in different work areas that work to a common goal................................2
c. Identify people that may already skill and task share to achieve a goal.............................2
2. Create a CoP................................................................................................................................2
a. Establish an electronic meeting place that includes:..........................................................3
b. Invite people.......................................................................................................................4
c. Publicise it..........................................................................................................................4
d. Encourage different levels of participation, welcome volunteers......................................5
e. Plan regular contact with the CoP......................................................................................5
f. Plan for disbanding the group once the goal is achieving...................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Communities of practice mainly reflects an organised group of the people who are having
some common interest and specific goals along with common technical and business domain.
The people in a formal communities of practises are properly collaborative in order to regularly
share the information along with improving their skills and actively directing and working
towards advancement of the general knowledge within a specific domain (Carroll & Mallon,
2021). The current project is based on Elfin Sports car which is an Australian Manufacturing
company that was founded in 1959 providing best quality sports cars and motor racing cars to its
customers. This project comprises of identifying group of people who are having similar set of
skill along with analysing the people who work to task share to achieve the common goal.
Main Body
1. Map organisational knowledge and identify existing informal CoPs.
The current task is associated with the communities of practice and how it supports and
related with the magnet of knowledge and skill within a firm. It has been analysed that the Elfin
is a well-known Australian automotive company that is manufacturing and providing sports cars
and motor racing cars. The recent concern and challenges faced by all automotive companies
comprises of meeting the environmental protection and ensuring a more suitable practise which
supports conservation of environment and natural resources (Mupepi, 2021). Thus, the main
purpose and specific goal of current informal communities of people are focused towards
discussion about the ways that can be adopted to reduce the carbon emission and other form of
pollution through designing and coming up with more efficient design and improved engineering
of sports cars that are more powerful and less harmful for environment.
a. Identify groups of people that have similar skill sets
The group of people who tend to have similar set of skills within in Elfin sports cars
comprise of various experienced and qualified automotive engineers along with the employee of
research and development department together with other shareholders and staff who are having
improved knowledge and understanding about the car engineering and design. The common skill
set of these engineers, employees of R&D, shareholders and other staff consists of having up to
date technical knowledge, communication, leadership, Interpersonal skills along with high level
of critical reasoning to effectively understand the needs and prevailing situation, Besides this,
1

high level of creativity, innovation and enthusiasm along with attention to detail and teamwork is
also required to come up with an improved design of sport car that is more powerful and also
ensures reduction in carbon emission and other pollutant to conserve and preserve the
environment (Ryan & Flood, et. al., 2021).
b. Identify people in different work areas that work to a common goal
The people from different work arears that are working for achievement of this common
goal of having a powerful and eco0friendly design of sport car comprises of the BOD of Elfin
sports car, their employees, engineers along with the staff of research and development. Beside
this, the key shareholders and other associated stakeholders included customers, government
suppliers and other members of society are also seemed determined and commitment towards the
goal of designing a powerful and eco-friendly sport car that ensure excitement and thrill to racers
along with ensuring the conservation and protection of environment from the harmful gases and
other polluting substances.
c. Identify people that may already skill and task share to achieve a goal
The various people who tend to already have the skills and task share required to create a
powerful and eco-friendly sports car comprises of the staff of research and development that has
developed various way of cleaner energy to reduce the chances of pollution such as electric car
and many other sources of cleaner and renewable energy. Beside this, the engineers and
experienced employees of Elfin who are working in the deigning of sports car are also the people
who possess all the set and required skills that are needed for task share and achieving the goal of
powerful and eco-friendly sports cars (Eshchar-Netz, & Vedder-Weiss, 2021) . Beside this,
marketing people are also the one who supports task share for achievement of goal as they ensure
and lead to improved communication and better promotion of shred goal for its improved
accomplishment.
2. Create a CoP
It has been analysed that the communities of practice are basically a groups of people who
share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact
regularly and are engage on an ongoing basis in some common endeavour. Thus, it has been
identified that the CoP is not just having a fan club of friends or any informal and unorganised
network of connections between people but it needs to be identity and defined by a shared
2

domain of interest. Therefore, it has been necessary while creating a community of people that
all the members should stand on one ground and tend to have some knowledge and required
skills and interest about that domain. Beside this, it also needs to be ensured that each member of
the CoP should be committed to the domain and need to have and share a unique competence,
skill level and knowledge level about the specific goal so that it distinguishes them from other
people and supports better achievement of desired goal (Hassan, 2021).
a. Establish an electronic meeting place that includes:
Electronic meeting place mainly comprises of a software and online platform that is
intended and establish to provoke and provide a place for discussion, problem solving and
effective decision making. The main aspects and features of current electronic meeting place
designing to support community of people for accomplishment of goal of designing a powerful
and eco-friendly sports car is provided as below:
i. Shared storage- The tool that has been used during current electronic meeting and CoP
comprise of use of Cloud storage which provide a space where digital data can be stored in a
local and systematic manner. Use of cloud storage facilitates and provides most authentic and
easy to assess shared storage for CoP and electronic meeting that allows a proper place to save
data and files in an off-site location that can be access either through the public internet or a
dedicated private network connection from any location. Apart from this, use of Google Drive
could also be made as shared storage as it supports easy a file storage and synchronization
service that is created by Google. Use of Google derive allows all the people in meeting to store
files in the cloud, share files and edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations photos through
a real-time document collaboration (Joshi, Redding, & Cannata, 2021). Beside this, to supports
effective discussion and meeting in the set domain the, google drive also supports write and edit
on the same document, at the same time, with chat and comment features which are
automatically saved and can be access from anywhere, at any time through making use of
smartphones, tablets or computers.
ii. Group mailing capability- Use of group email has been made to support group mailing
capability during the current electronic meeting that supports and allows better transfer and
sharing of information and document in the domain of deigning a powerful and eco-friendly
sports car. It has been ensured that the crated form group has an email address and whenever an
email is sent to that address everyone who are the part of the group receives the email. It has
3

been also ensured to effectively maintain the list of people in the group during the electronic
meeting to properly handle the receiving and forwarding on emails sent during the meeting for
improved discussion and knowledge transfer during the electronic meeting.
iii. Version control- Use of a Centralized Version Control System during the current
electronic meeting which ensures and brings better tracking and managing of all the practise and
task undertook and discussed during the current meeting with the help of a centrally manage
software code. Beside this, it has been also ensured that all the files are properly controlled and
placed so that it can be edited by one person at a time and also ensures tracking of changes to file
to reduce and mitigate the chances of confusion and chaos during the meeting (Malouchos,
2021).
iv. Permission sets- Use of effective permission set are made during the current meeting to
allows access to authentic and reliable people and set of knowledge only. Use of the created
Permission sets are effective in extending the users' functional access without changing their
profiles thus leads to higher reliability and authenticity of facts and knowledge during current
electronic meeting.
b. Invite people
Invitation for people for current developed community of people would be made with the
help of effective news blog and Utilizing basic tactics to grow the community. Apart from this,
encouraging people and existing members to grow their own followers and acting as a gateway
to new members is also an effective way to invite larger number of people to created CoP.
Having a unique area within the community of the people and plaining activities which supports
and leads to stimulated referrals is also an effective way to invite more people to CoP based on
the domain of the designing a powerful and eco-friendly. Use of e-mail could also be made to
invite the people for current electronic meeting and CoP (Parkinson, 2021).
c. Publicise it
To Publicise the group and to word out current domain as an open group use of social
media promotion and advertising is made. Thousands of people with creativity and innovation
skill along with knowledgeable about car engineering and conservation of environment are
present on social media site and networks thus, advertising and publishing current goal and
domain on digital platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc. would supports a more open and
effective CoP.
4

d. Encourage different levels of participation, welcome volunteers
To encourage different level of participation for their proper participation and involvement
continuously new ideas and knowledge based on the design of new sport car that is powerful and
eco-friendly would be made. along with this, a creating a place for newcomers is also adopted to
make them feel equally skilled and knowledge through simply guiding and advising them about
the domain. Regular preview and review of events and task is also made to encourage the
participants to have better skill development, knowledge creation and decision making based on
discussion within the created CoP (Carroll & Mallon, 2021).
e. Plan regular contact with the CoP
An effective plan has been made to ensure referral contact with the CoP which comprises
of the strategy of communicating frequently through making use of digital and online channels
along with social media and e-mails. Further, a safe and secure channels has been also provided
to share feedback to ensure more efficient and improved discussion and decision making on the
domain of designing a powerful and eco-friendly sports car (Mupepi, 2021).
f. Plan for disbanding the group once the goal is achieving
After achieving the set goal of coming up with a design of sports car that is more powerful
and eco-friendly which ensure much pollution free environment and reduction of carbon
emission the created CoP will get disbanded which comprises of group to stop existing. Blocking
of the group Gmail address along with stopping storage and modification in the cloud storage
and google should would be made once the goal has been achieving to disband the current CoP
(Ryan & Flood, et. al., 2021).
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above project, a conclusion can be made that Communities of practise lead
effective communication and interaction among group of people who share a mutual interest and
also set out an idea that join skills and confront people to solve a problem or challenge that is
arsing in the current business environment. Further, summarisation could also be made that many
people are there who have common skill and use of CoP can be made to share this knowledge
and skill to achieve a specific goal. At last, a summarisation can be made that Use of cloud
storage facilitates and provides most authentic and easy to assess shared storage for CoP and
electronic meeting.
5

REFERENCES
Books and journal
Carroll, A. J., & Mallon, M. N. (2021). Using digital environments to design inclusive and
sustainable communities of practice in academic libraries. The Journal of Academic
Librarianship, 47(5), 102380.
Mupepi, M. G. (2021). Using communities of practice to identify competencies. In Research
Anthology on Facilitating New Educational Practices Through Communities of
Learning (pp. 411-421). IGI Global.
Ryan, D. & Flood, et. al. (2021). Communities of practice as a solution for the implementation
gap in internationalisation of the curriculum. Higher Education Research &
Development, 1-16.
Eshchar-Netz, L., & Vedder-Weiss, D. (2021). Teacher Learning in Communities of Practice:
The Affordances of Co-Planning for Novice and Veteran Teachers' Learning. Journal of
Research in Science Teaching, 58(3), 366-391.
Hassan, N. (2021). Tending communities: Yoga as an integrative, collaborative, and
transformative practice. In Practicing Yoga as Resistance (pp. 291-304). Routledge.
Joshi, E., Redding, C., & Cannata, M. (2021). In the NIC of Time: How Sustainable Are
Networked Improvement Communities?. American Journal of Education, 127(3), 369-
397.
Malouchos, E. W. (2021). RECONSIDERING MISSISSIPPIAN COMMUNITIES AND
HOUSEHOLDS IN CONTEXT. Reconsidering Mississippian Communities and
Households, 9.
Parkinson, C. (2021). New theories for social work practice: Ethical practice for working with
individuals, families and communities. Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 33(1), 125-
126.
6