The importance of early scheduling for CoP

I can’t believe the summer is already drawing to a close and we are looking at the upcoming year of work. I wanted to send a reminder to all of us working on scheduling Communities of Practice sessions (CoP) for the upcoming year about the importance of setting meetings dates as early as possible -- it cannot be underestimated.

The reality is that we all are pulled in many directions in both our personal and professional lives and are balancing a host of commitments. The earlier a group makes a commitment to a particular set of dates the more attendance will be maximized.

Unfortunately I have seen in my own work with CoP that some CoP have everything going for them but a scheduling conflict prevents an important member of the community from participating and is a loss for everyone. In some of my CoP it took a few years until the group experimented with and found the date and time that maximized participation.

It is frustrating to have something as trivial as scheduling be responsible for diminishing an important and promising initiative and yet it happens. So I encourage you to set the dates for your CoP meetings as soon as possible.

All the best for a productive year of learning.


Naava