Communities of Practice provide an opportunity for those using Appreciative Inquiry to come together to share their practice and learn from each over to develop their knowledge and skills.

Typically, Communities of Practice are established after a training course or Appreciative Inquiry event where participants are keen to keep the impetus of the experience alive and wish to embed and deepen their learning about Appreciative Inquiry in their work or their community.

Communities of Practice provide a mutually supportive environment in which to do this on a regular basis, usually monthly or quarterly, with participants bringing examples of their experience to discuss and/or focusing on a particular aspect of Appreciative Inquiry practice to explore in more depth. One example is Appreciating Church’s Appreciative Space programme which has been offering monthly one hour gatherings for church-based practitioners since November 2022.

Our support offer

IAAI can provide support to facilitate Communities of Practice especially in the early stages when determining how the Community of Practice might operate and when input on different elements of Appreciative Inquiry might be helpful. In the longer term we encourage Communities of Practice to become self-directed, but we remain available to provide support as needed.

The benefits of Communities of Practice include:

• A regular opportunity for participants to explore particular experiences in more depth in a supportive environment
• An ongoing space to deepen learning about appreciative inquiry, and how it can be embedded in a specific workplace
• Through the experience of mutual learning and development, to strengthen relationships and wider collaboration in an organisation as well as enhance an organisation’s learning culture.