Building a Community of Practice with Michael Mucha

This month’s theme article comes to us from Michael Mucha, PRESERVE chair and Principal at Moonshot Missions. Michael has worked as an executive and public works director throughout the country, most recently as the Executive Director of the Madison Metropolitan Sewage District in Wisconsin. In this month’s blog, Michael offers advice for those considering starting a Community of Practice, and tips for navigating our new CoP toolkit.  

I have always enjoyed group problem solving. In a way, that’s so much of what being in a community of practice is all about. Similar to the work of a new start up, a community of practice involves a collection of like-minded people (in the case of PRESERVE similar-sized utilities) coming together to solve problems, exchange knowledge, and develop relationships. Developing PRESERVE has been its own problem-solving journey, and our new toolkit captures the lessons we’ve learned along the way. 

Our recently released toolkit breaks down our experiences developing a Community of Practice into three distinct phases. The first phase, “Go Fast to Go Slow,” is all about coming together as a team to identify and define who we want to be. In this phase, it’s super important to establish some structure to guide you and the team—you don’t fully realize until you get to talking that each of you have different visions and ideas for how you picture the community of practice. Developing the Project Canvas helped us to articulate our different ideas, and we were able to come together in our vision by asking questions in a thoughtful way. This led us to a Charter, which articulates the hopes you have for the community. Allow the resources in this phase to provide your team with the structure they need to be stronger together.  

Our second phase “Find Your People,” is all about solidifying who needs to be on your team. This phase of the work is often the most challenging. Here, it’s important to reach out to people who have areas of expertise that you don’t and learn to fill in the gaps. Though it’s best to fill your complete team at the onset of the project, things happen. What’s really important to remember when you discover you need a new team member: find out what they like to do and find out what they are really good at. Use those interests and the needs of the project to play to people’s strengths.  

In Phase three, “Recruit Your Cohort,” you are ready to start adding members! Don’t underestimate how much time recruitment for your CoP will take. This often involves cold emails, unreturned phone calls, and nerve-wracking intro meetings. Don’t take the rejection or the silence personally. We all have pressures in our life and in our jobs. When you are reaching out and cold calling, you are priority 20. Bring some empathy to that, and realize that who you are reaching out to is busy just like you are. The resources we’ve provided in this phase should help with structure, professionalism, and accountability as you work to recruit your members. Keep plugging away! 

Finally, the fourth phase is “Retain Your Cohort.” For us, this encompassed the engagement during and after those first cohort meetings. Lay the groundwork for this retention by having a good meeting structure, asking the right questions, not feeling pressured to know their answers, and expect the unexpected. Continue to push for clarity any chance you get with your cohort- this will help you know how to engage them moving forward! Your cohort members will likely come in skeptical, so be prepared for the discomfort by building in inclusive activities that get people talking. Our online community provides some ideas for ways you might keep the conversation going.  

My favorite part of being in this Community of Practice is hearing the innovation, ideas, priorities, and resources of our members. I also love getting to see you all work with each other and work with the resources you have. As you consider forming a community of practice, look to your team for ideas, thoughts, and inspiration. Adapt the toolkit to fit your style. While structure is great, too much structure can make people nervous. Don’t see our toolkit as a prescription, but instead a starting point to make it yours!  

We believe that everyone benefits from a community of their peers, and we’d love to work with you to make that happen! Please email preserve@moonshotmissions.org if you’d like to discuss any of these steps in greater detail.