The need to gather among peers to exchange ideas has always existed: from the agoras of ancient Greece to the literary salons of the Age of Enlightenment, by way of the first scientific academies, examples abound. Today, exchanging ideas about one’s profession is a lever for personal and collective growth. This is particularly true in project management: it is a vast, ever-evolving discipline, with notable progress year after year across varied environments.
This is how Communities of Practice came about. They bring participants together around a specific theme to exchange ideas and grow.
Despite their relevance, communities of practice remain difficult to run. Large companies are interested in them, but their structure sometimes prevents them from lasting over time. This gap has therefore been filled by associations such as the Project Management Institute or SMaP, which offer their members a benchmark of practices and trends in the profession.
At setec eocen, we also felt this need to come together to discuss topics with strong potential for progress and improvement. This article draws on the words and lessons learned from setec eocen’s Communities of Practice (COPs) to extract insights that can be applied more broadly. We will look at the strengths of Communities of Practice and the characteristics that make them “good COPs,” before examining the difficulties and pitfalls that can turn them into “bad COPs.” Finally, we will see that the facilitator’s role is central, and that they are the true hero of COPs.
Good COP: when building a community improves projects
Let’s start with the positives: why are COPs so important? What makes a COP a “good COP”? The primary goal of a COP is to help people progress. Everyone who attends a COP can come with questions. The search for solutions is collective, and everyone contributes their part to the whole.
For example, an eocen COP specializing in the PRINCE2 framework created a matrix measuring the maturity of the scoping documents for projects led by eocen. Each project is different, and in fact, each COP participant could easily identify who to ask for the best practices to, and where. Participant “A,” experienced in risk management but supporting a project that dealt little with budget management, was easily able to get help from participant “B” to make progress on that topic.
A COP is a place for peer-to-peer exchange where everyone is entitled to share their point of view. More than a top-down discussion, it’s a community where participants collaborate. A COP brings people together, despite geographic distance or scope differences. It’s a unifying space that also contributes to participants’ well-being by bringing them together. This sens of belonging is reinforced during in-person sessions, when genuine moments are shared, for example, a two-hour session followed by lunch at a restaurant. To handle COPs with seriousness but lightness, each facilitator has their own recipe… and unwavering focus. Over time, participants get to know each other, and COPs become eagerly awaited meetings where good spirits prevail.
As we’ve said, the goal of COPs is to help participants progress. They share best practices: tools, methods, processes, document templates, etc. One facilitator pointed out that, most of the time, good tools already exist but are little known. The COP makes them visible and accessible. Their use first spreads among COP participants, then to other project stakeholders. Harmonization gradually spreads throughout the organization.
COPs are also an opportunity to make progress on complex topics. Through the sharing of experience, participants find concrete solutions to their challenges: for example, comparing features of PPM (Project Portfolio Management) tools or planning synthesis solutions, finding new ways to vary the facilitation of a retrospective or a risk-identification session, and many other concrete, specific solutions that participants can apply immediately.
Expertise also comes from taking a step back, despite busy weeks. COPs dedicate time for this time for reflection and intellectual elevation: theoretical topics and their practical applications to current events, methods and tools — everything is covered.
The expertise gained through COPs is a lever for growth. Participants are more effective, and their expertise is visible in the projects they work on. Participants are professionals who master today’s and tomorrow’s solutions. They are reliable.
And a COP can be an ideal space for recognizing this expertise. In this sense, one of eocen’s COPs brings together Program Directors, our external, and Program PMOs, providing an opportunity to jointly address some program-management challenges: benefits tracking or synchronization between projects. The COP meets a goal of continuous improvement and customers satisfaction, in partnership between customers (whether internal to eocen or external) and project managers.
As such, a COP always has an impact on customers, whether they are present or not. The decision to involve customers in the COP is up to the organizer, but the benefits are for everyone!
To conclude this first part, let’s recall the three pillars of COPs: skills development, community spirit, and mutual support. A good COP doesn’t just bring people together: it structures and cultivates the expertise of its members.
However, COPs are not easy to create, and even less easy to sustain. Let’s look at the difficult aspects that can turn them into bad COPs.
Facing the “Bad COP” : overcoming burnout and the lack of time to reinvent
As mentioned earlier, COPs are added on top of regular activities, which inevitably creates scheduling constraints. This sometimes leads facilitators to have to reduce the frequency of COP sessions.
It’s important for COPs to communicate about their successes and benefits, to promote themselves, in a sense. eocen’s Agile COP defines and communicates upcoming session topics in advance to make people want to participate. Management can also support facilitators and encourage everyone to attend a COP at least once, just to try it. And if needed, management can help restructure the COP. Once this challenge is overcome, the rest follows naturally: if the COP is relevant and lively, participation comes naturally!
After launching a COP, the challenge is making it last over time.
Over the course of sessions, hot topics and problems get addressed. Participants build their skills, gain maturity, and become more experienced. The projects they work on become better defined. This can sometimes create a gap with the environment participants operate in: they have progressed, but the people they support have stagnated.
One facilitator spoke about the life cycle of a COP, noting that “the purpose that justified opening the COP is no longer relevant.” The COP can then becomes less frequent, takes a pause. In short, it loses momentum. And, spoiler alert, that’s normal!
But a COP can evolve and take on other forms. First, it can broaden its list of participants and welcome people who haven’t yet benefited from this skills growth. Next, topics can change. Rather than focusing on blockers, the COP can address current events: trending topics, a new process, an improved tool, etc. The format can also evolve: moving from live sessions to other digital formats (documents in a shared cloud, quizzes, newsletters, etc.). A COP can also meet broader company needs, such as creating training programs, coaching, helping respond to tenders, or showcasing the COP’s subject matter within the company. Ultimately, the COP takes on a broader meaning and helps maintain the level of expertise gained by focusing on topics that truly create value.
Ending a COP is a real challenge: it needs to evolve into new forms and maintain engagement while loosening the ties that bind it.
Sometimes it’s necessary to go further and decide to end the COP altogether. And that’s not a failure. On the contrary, the questions that justified its creation have been resolved, everyone has progressed, the materials remain accessible, and the knowledge lives on.
The real hero: the facilitator and their team
We’ve seen that running a COP takes a lot of work. The COP facilitator is the superhero thanks to whom the COP exists. They are a committed expert who works tirelessly to make it happen. The role is demanding: between staying informed, preparation (one to three hours per session), and facilitation itself, the commitment is total, often on top of their usual responsibilities.
Like a PMO, the facilitator demonstrates method. Whether they plan topics in advance or respond to current events, they vary the formats (workshops, brainstorming, webinars) to maintain interest and a sense of camaraderie. Their goal? To make the COP a meeting people look forward to.
Beyond expertise, soft skills are what drive the facilitator. Their empathy and ability to build connections are key to sustainable facilitation. To get people talking, they use interaction techniques such as icebreakers (e.g., “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” where the Good highlights what’s going well, the Bad identifies what’s going wrong, and the Ugly points out what’s going well but could easily be improved). By involving every member, they turn a simple meeting into a collective reflection that benefits everyone.
Of course, the facilitator can get help and build their own “justice league” by gathering other equally committed experts around them. They too are committed to keeping the COP lively and engaging.
On the participants’ side, seeing that a driving group already exists around the topic is even more motivating. In addition to interest in the subject matter, the group effect strengthens the desire to join the COP.
A facilitator’s work doesn’t stop at the end of the session. They are also responsible for a two-fold knowledge-sharing effort.
First, they share the session’s content via collaborative platforms so that the COP’s work remains accessible to participants.
Then, for broader distribution across the company, sharing continues via a knowledge-management tool. At eocen, we’ve developed our own tool: Wik’eo. All content (COP materials, training sessions, webinars, tools, and much more) is available there, accessible and easy to find.
Conclusion
In conclusion, let’s remember that facilitation is the decisive factor for COPs. Making the benefits of a COP known helps launch it and attract participants. Then, knowing how to evolve it over time and in form helps it endure.
COPs that endure are condensed human adventures full of encounters, mutual support, public speaking, changing rhythms, doubts, and victories that allow everyone, participants and facilitators alike, to get moving and grow together.
The facilitator is neither a “good COP” nor a “bad COP.” They juggle various constraints. Their method, motivation, and commitment are the pillars of their work. They are the true superhero of the COP.
So thank you to all our superheroes, whose contributions brought this article to life and who tirelessly keep our COPs running!