What is a community of practice?

A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a concern, a set of problems or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis.¹ Members improve their practice by meeting regularly, sharing experience and learning from each other.

How a community of practice works

The three elements of a community of practice

Every community of practice has:

a shared domain: the topic or area of interest that brings members together
a community: members who interact, help each other and share information
a shared practice: the experience, tools and ways of working that members build together.

Diagram of three overlapping circles: domain (what we care about), community (who cares about it) and practice (what we do together about it). — Diagram showing the domain, community and practice elements of a community of practice.

Ways communities of practice meet

Communities of practice can meet in person or online. Formats include meetings, meetups, webinars, and conversations on Slack, Microsoft Teams or email.

The lifecycle of a community of practice

Communities of practice have a natural lifecycle. They begin with a new idea and end when the group has reached its objectives or the community no longer provides value.² Each topic a community takes on tends to follow a similar path of development.

Diagram of five stages of a community of practice: committing, starting up, operating, winding down and shutting down, with activity peaking at the operating stage. — Diagram showing the stages of development of a community of practice.

Levels of participation

Members take part at different levels, from core members who lead the community to people who join occasionally, and they can move between levels as their needs and interests change.⁴

Guiding principles

Communities of practice work best when they are:³

voluntary and community led
self-driven
responsive to members’ needs as they change
focused on the information needs of members
delivering value for members
flexible, with different levels of participation
run with a regular rhythm of formal and informal activities
open to both internal and external voices.

The value of a community of practice

Benefits for members

A community of practice helps members:

stay connected with like-minded colleagues and peers
share their experience and learn from others
collaborate to achieve common outcomes
learn faster
build on existing knowledge and good practice
innovate and create new ideas.

As communities of practice generate knowledge, they also renew themselves. In the words of one well-known description, they give you “not only the golden eggs but also the goose that lays them”.⁵

Table showing the short-term and long-term value of a community of practice for members and for the organisation. — Diagram showing the value a community of practice brings to members and organisations.

The LDAT community of practice

The ADF runs a community of practice for ADF staff and Local Drug Action Teams, to turn conversations into collaboration. LDATs can take part by logging in to the LDAT platform, or by contacting their Relationship Manager to find out more.

Last reviewed: 3 November 2026

References

Wenger-Trayner E, Wenger-Trayner B. Communities of practice: a brief introduction. Wenger-Trayner; 2015. (PDF)
Coakes E, Clarke S. An introduction to communities of practice. In: Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management. 2nd ed. IGI Global; 2010. p. 482–488.
Wenger E, McDermott R, Snyder W. Seven principles for cultivating communities of practice. 2002.
Wenger-Trayner E, Wenger-Trayner B. Levels of participation [slide]. Wenger-Trayner.
Wenger E, Snyder W. Communities of practice: the organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review. 2000 Jan–Feb.
Eisenberg R. Building community: a primer – 2018 update. Washington, DC: World Bank; 2018.
Scaled Agile. Communities of practice. Scaled Agile Framework.