As digital transformation accelerates and becomes a core theme of central government delivery, government teams are striving to modernise their processes, upskill their people, and deliver smarter services for the public and businesses. One approach gaining traction is the creation of Communities of Practice (CoP) — structured yet flexible spaces where professionals can collaborate, share knowledge, and develop capability together.
I recently sat down with my colleague Bruce Fanshawe, Head of Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) at the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), to present a webinar for Digital Leaders. OPSS Digital oversees the development of digital solutions supporting product safety regulation and consists of around 20 civil servants across multiple disciplines such as product, delivery, data engineering and dev ops.
Bruce and I used the webinar to share our experience building a thriving Community of Practice. We have found that CoPs can drive not just digital skills growth but team cohesion, morale, and innovation — even in hybrid or distributed teams.
What is a Community of Practice?
A Community of Practice is a group of people who share a common role, discipline or area of interest and come together to deepen their knowledge and expertise through regular interaction. In government digital teams, CoPs often focus on specific DDaT professions such as user centred design, product and delivery, data, or software development.
Crucially, CoPs are not just meetings or forums. They are living ecosystems where:
- Knowledge is co-created and shared.
- Best practice is documented and evolved.
- Support is peer-led.
- Collaboration crosses team and departmental boundaries.
This makes CoPs well placed to support the specific challenges a given organisation may face.
How does OPSS use its Community of Practice?
We established a Community of Practice for the OPSS DDaT team as part of a broader effort to build capability across its internal civil servants and external delivery partners. It is not profession specific, and open to all people and professions who are working on DDaT project on the team, helping build common understanding and collaboration.
Here’s how we made it work:
- Team Charter: Co-created by the whole team, this evolving artefact sets expectations, values, and working methods. It’s used regularly for onboarding and reflection.
- Digital Toolkit: A SharePoint-based repository of templates, best practice and examples drawn from real projects spanning vastly differing delivery sectors, helping teams avoid reinventing the wheel.
- Mural Hub: The central space for sharing updates, showing project activity (“constellations”), running “health checks” and mapping team locations and roles.
- Buddy System: Pairs team members quarterly to encourage informal connections across disciplines, supporting new team members through assignment of buddies to help with onboarding.
- Lean Coffee Sessions: Topic-based discussions over a virtual coffee, where the agenda is democratically voted on. It gives everyone, including junior team members, a voice.
Answering common questions
During the webinar, several excellent questions were raised about how to run a successful Community of Practice. Here are a few we’d like to highlight:
Q: How do you keep the information up to date on the CoP?
A: Like any knowledge base, a CoP needs care and feeding. At OPSS, ownership is shared across the team. If you lead a profession or product area, it’s your responsibility to contribute useful artefacts and updates. The community sessions also act as a prompt to revisit and refresh shared resources, particularly after key project milestones like service assessments.
Q: How do you measure the impact of a CoP?
A: While the cultural benefits can be hard to quantify, capability growth can be tracked against the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Capability Framework. In OPSS’s case, onboarding has become faster, delivery has become more consistent, and workshop ideas are generated organically from within the team.
One suggestion in the webinar was to compare team capability or satisfaction before and after introducing the CoP. Another was to measure the reuse of templates and approaches as a proxy for value.
Q: Where should someone start if they want to create their own CoP?
A: Start small. At OPSS, the CoP began with a single Lean Coffee session using a simple Mural board. From there, the team built a Team Charter, added the Digital Toolkit, and gradually expanded the scope. Most importantly, they ringfenced time — an hour per month — to step away from delivery and focus on community building.
Make sure everyone is heard in this space. A safe, blame-free environment encourages contribution and builds trust.
Q: How do you balance civil servants and contractors in a CoP?
A: This was a standout success at OPSS. The CoP actively blended civil servants and consultants into one cohesive team. Shadowing sessions, open knowledge sharing, and transparency about future plans (including reducing reliance on contractors) all helped build mutual respect and trust. One colleague said, “We don’t really see boundaries — we’re all working towards the same goal.”
Final thoughts
A well-run Community of Practice isn’t just a knowledge-sharing platform — it’s a driver of culture, capability, and confidence. OPSS’s approach shows how investing time and trust in these spaces can help bridge skills gaps, reduce duplication, and foster genuine collaboration across disciplines.
Starting a CoP might be one of the most valuable things you can do to strengthen digital delivery in your organisation.
If you have a question for Dave or the Triad team, please get in touch.
