CoP business case template

At certain point in time, organisations planning to cultivate Communities of Practice (CoP) need to put up a business case to justify the relevance and investment to the management.

Here is a simple CoP business case template for reference. I'm looking forward to your comments to further improve this template.

Project Sponsorship
(Enter the name and title of the project sponsor)

Business Objectives
(Introduce the community and the expected changes that creating a community will make to the business and members)
Pointers:

• What the community will be used for (helping, stewarding knowledge, impart best practices, innovation, improve a specific practice, build relationships, motivation, communications, professional development…)
• What changes will this community bring about

Community approach
(State the high level activities that the community will take to achieve the desired changes)
Pointers:

• Pay attention to activities that will cater to practice improvements; and ALSO
• Pay attention to regular activities that will sustain the interest of the community. A CoP is different from a task force or project team. Members will have different needs at various times and they’ll need to leverage on the community for guidance. A community that neglects this aspect and focus just on specific practice improvements risks poor adoption from members.

Business impact
(State the business impact that will be brought about by the CoP)
Pointers:

• State the impact that will be brought about by both practice related changes/improvements and regular ongoing activities.
• Focus on the outcomes, benefits and beneficiaries.

Critical Success Factors (Enablers)
(List the critical success factors for this community to be successful)
Pointers:

• Identify issues that the organisation and the members are passionate about
• Properly scoped community such that we can bring in new ideas and new members, but narrow enough that most members will be interested in the topics discussed
• Regular interaction and relationship building activities among members
• Strong community leadership
• …

Probability for success (High, Medium, Low)
(List a fair probability of success and why)

Other notes and issues
(List any other supporting notes that can help make the case)