The assessment of communities of practice

This paper introduces the Community Assessment Toolkit (CAT) as a method for the assessment of Communities of Practice (CoPs) and provides an overview of its construction and applicability. It shows that the methodology is based on current theories with regard to CoPs and group dynamics. The method was also tested in practice through a pilot and a study among members of 7 communities of practice (N=271) in order to enable reliability tests and scale analysis. The method is unique in the sense that it provides feedback on the overall performance of CoPs on the individual, group and organizational level. The systematic nature of the CAT questionnaire enables comparisons between communities both within and between organizations. The CAT may be used for further scientific research into CoPs as well as for the analysis of community effectiveness for companies. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.