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The Value of Knowledge Management 359

Measuring the Success of Communities of Practice
Finally, there are a number of metrics that are particularly well suited to measuring
the value created by communities of practice. In general, there are three types of value
that can result ( Krebs 2008 ):
Structural value The creation of connections in a network; the amount of time spent
in interacting with others; the fl ow of knowledge between network members (typically
measured using social network analysis (SNA) techniques
Relational value The maintenance of connections; their longevity; the degree of reci-
procity in network interactions (typically assessed through surveys and anecdotes)
Cognitive value The commonality or cohesiveness of the network (which can be
assessed through SNA and interviewing techniques)
Stories are a good way to illustrate the links between community activities, perfor-
mance outcomes, and value. Some sample questions to elicit such stories would be:
• “ What would not have happened without this CoP in place? ”
• “ Did you save time because you had access to community resources, including other
people? Did you fi nd the answer to a question more quickly or did you solve a problem
more rapidly? ”
• “ Has your decision-making confi dence increased since you have been a member of
this CoP? ”
Social network analysis (SNA) is a good tool to map out the patterns of network
interactions (who interacts with whom, what knowledge products are exchanged,
what is the frequency or density of each interaction, are there interactions you would
have expected to be present, e.g., people working on projects together) that were not
in evidence? SNA can also be very useful in establishing a baseline measure for a given
CoP and can be used to track changes over time (such as greater coalescence, fl uctua-
tions in activity levels) as well as to identify “ hidden experts. ” Hidden experts are
readily visible in a social network map as they appear as a node at the center of dense
connections — a traffi c cop of sorts — who appears to be instrumental in maintaining
good knowledge circulation throughout the community. These valuable nodes tend
to be the “ go to ” people in an organization — people who can quickly connect you to
other people or to valuable content because they just know who knows what and
where the useful knowledge resides.
Finally, time-use studies can also be used to measure productivity and time saved
by CoP members. A time-use study is usually done with a self-report survey instrument
that asks people to report on the time they spend solving problems, making decisions,