Community of Practice

Assess how well your Community of Practice shares knowledge, aligns on goals, collaborates, and keeps members motivated to learn.

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Strengthen how your community learns and grows together

Communities of Practice thrive when members feel connected, aligned, and energized to learn together. Use this check to explore how well your community shares knowledge, collaborates, stays focused on common goals, and keeps people motivated to grow. The results reveal where your community is working well and where small changes could unlock greater participation, trust, and shared value across the group.

Dimensions

Community of Practice

Explore the health of your Community of Practice across knowledge sharing, alignment, collaboration, feedback, and motivation.

  • Knowledge Sharing

    Gauges whether members have the opportunity, means, and willingness to share and learn from one another.

    1. We do not take time to share or participate, or there are no opportunities to do so.
    2. We have limited opportunities to share knowledge.
    3. We have some sharing opportunities and can do so on occasion.
    4. We share knowledge fairly regularly across the community.
    5. We have the means, opportunity and participation levels for knowledge to be shared.

  • Alignment

    Reflects how clearly the community shares a common focus on its goals and challenges.

    1. It feels like a free for all with no synergy.
    2. Our goals rarely line up with one another.
    3. Our goals are sometimes aligned.
    4. We are mostly aligned on our common goals.
    5. We have a shared and clear focus on our common goals and challenges.

  • Collaboration

    Measures how effectively members work together to solve complex problems.

    1. We only work as individuals.
    2. We rarely collaborate with one another.
    3. We collaborate on an ad-hoc basis.
    4. We collaborate fairly often on shared problems.
    5. We collaborate regularly and well to solve complex problems.

  • Feedback

    Assesses whether members feel safe and are encouraged to give and receive feedback.

    1. No one feels safe or is asked to give and receive feedback.
    2. Feedback is rare and not always welcomed.
    3. There are limited options to receive and give feedback.
    4. We are often asked for feedback and usually feel safe doing so.
    5. We are always asked for feedback and feel safe doing so.

  • Motivation and Fun

    Captures how engaged and inspired members feel to learn and grow within the community.

    1. I am bored. I don't get excited about learning something new.
    2. I rarely feel motivated to take part.
    3. I sometimes get value and motivation, but it's not consistent.
    4. I usually enjoy taking part and learning new things.
    5. I enjoy and look forward to the experience and always have the opportunity to learn and grow.

When to use this health check

  • When launching or maturing a Community of Practice and you want a baseline of its health.
  • When participation or engagement in your community feels uneven and you want to find out why.
  • During regular check-ins to track how knowledge sharing and collaboration evolve over time.
  • When you want to surface barriers to feedback, alignment, or motivation within the group.

Tips & tricks

  • Run the check anonymously to encourage honest input on feedback safety and motivation.
  • Compare results across sessions to see whether sharing and collaboration are improving.
  • Discuss the lowest-scoring dimension first and agree on one small experiment to improve it.
  • Invite both active and quieter members so the results reflect the whole community.
  • Pair the results with a retrospective to turn insights into concrete actions.

Frequently asked questions

What is a Community of Practice health check?
It is a structured way for members of a Community of Practice to rate how well the group shares knowledge, stays aligned, collaborates, exchanges feedback, and keeps people motivated to learn.
Who should take part?
All members of the community should participate, including both highly active contributors and quieter members, so the results reflect the full range of experiences.
How often should we run it?
Many communities run it every quarter or before key milestones so they can track how knowledge sharing, collaboration, and engagement change over time.
What do the five dimensions measure?
They cover Knowledge Sharing, Alignment, Collaboration, Feedback, and Motivation and Fun, giving a rounded view of how healthy and engaging the community is.