Leveraging communities of practice to enhance IOC initiatives

Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. This sounds simple; however, managing a community of practice, often also called a learning community, is more complex than just organising a few webinars over the year. A systematic approach is necessary to achieve the best value proposition and outcomes for everyone involved.

The IOC’s IKL team has used this form of knowledge exchange for several years to promote learning across the IOC and OCOGs. It is now also working with certain IOC departments to help them set up their own meaningful communities of practice with their internal and external stakeholders. A recent example involves the Olympism365 Department, led by Associate Director Ollie Dudfield.

Maximising the impact of sport and Olympism 365 days a year

So how is learning embedded in Olympism365? How can communities of practice add value to the department’s activities? How can they get started, and what are the DOs and DON’Ts other IOC departments and OCOGs could learn from?

“A learning-focused approach is a priority with Olympism365,” explains Ollie. “First, evaluating activities, initiatives and projects, and learning from those insights, enables us to constantly advance the outcomes and impact of Olympism365. We are thereby reaching more people and communities who can benefit positively from sport and the Olympic values at community level. This can be by enhancing health and overall well-being, or improving access to education and livelihoods, or more generally by promoting more equitable, inclusive, peaceful and safe communities.

“Second, we are constantly learning by fully utilising the expertise and diverse lived experiences of our partners and stakeholders. There is a very strong collective action approach to Olympism365. The range of projects, programmes and interventions that contribute to the strategy are delivered jointly by a large number of organisations or actors from different sectors. That’s where maximising  important learning opportunities through communities of practice is essential.”

Strategy for multi-stakeholder activities

Olympism365 initiatives often involve both local sports and community development organisations, specialised NGOs, public authorities, UN agencies, development banks, Worldwide Olympic Partners and other entities. For instance, the Olympism365 team is currently overseeing a sport, education and livelihoods portfolio of projects and initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean, which involves the National Olympic Committees, National Federations, community organisations and social NGOs. The latter are working specifically on helping young people to improve their employability or economic participation through sport-based curricula and approaches. Local and national authorities, interested in how sport can contribute to improving education and employability outcomes, are also involved. Setting up communities of practice in such a context helps actively engage all relevant parties and can foster effective engagement, collaboration, shared learning and, ultimately, participatory decision-making processes.

“The IKL team has helped us to get started on approaches and processes to bring these diverse stakeholders together into a community of practice and clarify the value proposition for them in terms of learning and capacity building. They also advised on which tools and techniques can help facilitate shared learning,” says Ollie.

Steps to get started

To start with, the Olympism365 team identified the three portfolios where communities of practice could be of utmost value: sport, education and livelihoods; sport and youth crime prevention; and sport, health and active communities. Subsequently, the IKL team then assisted with identifying the shared objective for each of these learning communities before mapping out the stakeholders which would benefit from participating in each community, including but not limited to the IOC partners engaged through the Olympism365 strategy. The final step was to determine the type of learning experiences, be they formal or informal, which would be beneficial for each community.

The importance of smart stakeholder mapping

“Mapping out who would benefit from being involved in a learning community requires some out-of-the-box thinking,” cautions Ollie. “For instance, one may think that sports organisations on the ground are best suited to share expertise and approaches to grow the participation base in local sports activities. But actually, often educational or social development organisations have been successful in reaching out to different communities and breaking down barriers to participation in local activities. Likewise, public health organisations are well placed to draw on health messaging techniques and successfully tested behaviour change communication to reach a range of new and diverse communities. Involving those types of organisations in a sport-themed learning community can therefore offer substantial value.”

The diversity, which is a key characteristic of each community of practice, can also pose challenges. Participants can approach the same topic from very different angles and take a lot or very little space in a conversation. “Our collective experience has been that different people and organisations engage with the learning communities in different ways, at different times and for different reasons,” points out Ollie. “This is normal and most of the time positive, but needs to be managed and therefore requires human resource to manage.”

“Backbone” support as key success factor

A key mistake observed by the Olympism365 Department is when supporting or facilitating communities of practice is just an add-on to programmes and partners’ roles. Most importantly, a dedicated resource is needed to keep the group engaged in between different meetings, events or learning activities. This can happen through regular communication, sharing of insight or knowledge, and fostering a sense of belonging to a learning community. Therefore, investment in “backbone” support for learning communities is being rolled out across the portfolio of projects and initiatives that make up the Olympism365 strategy.

“For us, communities of practice are a key part of the ongoing delivery of Olympism365,” concludes Ollie. “As well as supporting learning for the IOC, facilitating learning communities provides a wider value proposition – in relation to social development through sport – that the IOC can offer to a large number of organisations. These organisations go beyond those directly involved in project delivery or formal training and capacity-building activities. The IOC, as the leader of the Olympic and sports movement committed to building a better world through sport, has a crucial role to play here. In this context, the IKL team’s expertise has been invaluable.”

Interested in learning more about communities of practice and how they could enhance your activities? Contact IKL@olympic.org for more information.