Detailed Results from My Survey: Cross-Organizational Product Community of Practice Participants
I dedicated a large portion of 2022 to learning all about product Communities of Practice (CoP). My research involved two main activities: conducting in-depth interviews with CoP leaders/organizers and running a survey of CoP participants. By the way, if you’d like to explore the interviews with CoP leaders/organizers, you can find them all here.
The survey results were such a treasure trove of information that I couldn’t fit it all into a single blog post. In this third post in the series, I’ll provide detailed results from the respondents who participate in external Communities of Practice.
Looking for a high-level overview? You can find that here. Or, if you’d like to explore the detailed responses from company internal CoP participants, you can find those here.
🌱Answers from participants that are part of a cross-organizational CoP
In this post, you’ll have the chance to comb through the results from the survey respondents who participate in cross-organizational CoPs. These are CoPs that are offered by a person, company, or entity outside of your employer. For these types of CoPs, members generally choose to participate and may even need to pay a fee for their membership.
As it is likely super boring for you to go through all the answers in detail, I’ve aggregated similar answers and each bullet point summarizes them. The examples in parentheses are quotes so that you get an idea of exactly how people were phrasing things.
I’d like to note that this is a small sample size of only 59 people, so please keep this in mind while reading the answers.
Let’s start with some hard facts: 48% belong to an international/global community, 33% said it’s a local community, and 18.5% said they are part of a nationwide community.
When it comes to community size, 60% belong to a large community (with more than 100 members), 20% are part of a small community (with 3–10 members), and the other 20% are somewhere in between.
Now let’s have a brief look at the next few questions so that you can jump to the question/answers that are most relevant to you:
How did you find the external Community of Practice you are part of?
What made you join this CoP?
What do you like most about this CoP?
What formats/rituals/channels work best for you when engaging with this CoP?
What are things that could be improved?
Would you mind sharing the name of the Community?
How did you find the cross-organizational Community of Practice you are part of?
Word of mouth (“Recommended in a product article/newsletter,” “Colleague introduced me”)
LinkedIn (“stumbled upon them in my stream”)
Twitter (“The community was mentioned by somebody I follow and respect.”)
They’ve reached out to me (“meeting the founder on another community event and she convinced me to join”)
Via the content the community hosts are sharing (“Learned about it in one of Teresa's posts”)
I was actively searching for it
What made you join this CoP? (sorted by # of mentions)
I was looking for new perspectives and input and they seemed to deliver on that (“To learn from others in Product with different experiences and perspectives,” “Valuable to get an external perspective on your day-to-day work”)
Community seemed active (“Frequency and Quality of events, great discussions,” “Regular events, quality of speakers”)
Sharing the struggle (“they seemed to be zero bullshit and really sharing real product challenges,” “sometimes we even co-create if one of the members got stuck and that didn’t make me join but it makes me stay!”)
Great networking (“I wanted to meet some new product peers,” “I was looking for real-life connections”)
Everybody seems eager to learn and share
They are sharing great content (“The first few resources I’ve discovered through them were pure gold, so I’ve decided to stay,” “I want to keep my know-how up to date and it looks like they will give me that.”)
Getting feedback (“They run regular 1:1 peer-review and sharing sessions and that was exactly what I was looking for”)
Personal visibility (“They allow me to build a personal brand while I’m giving back to the community”)
Accountability (“I want to make sure to not take unethical product decisions and my community challenges me on that,” “we keep each other accountable on our learning goals”)
What do you like most about this CoP?
The people (“The diverse, international community and high level of discourse,” “like-minded and smart people”)
Finding new people (“I’m making so many new product friends,” “I’m making new connections and love the conversations with them”)
That it is a safe space (“As there are only product people I feel less vulnerable when I share some things I’m currently struggling with”)
Sharing the struggle (“Our conversations are a constant reminder of: Software Development: not as easy as it seems,”“Hearing how things are done in different organizations”)
The book clubs (“I’m not a big reader but with my community folks it’s way more fun,” “The book clubs + the conversations about the book help me put some of the books’ advice into practice. Would not be able to do this w/o these community conversations.”)
The content we share (“I like that the things we share are giving me a global perspective,” “It’s a great filter for the things I should really read”)
What formats/rituals/channels work best for you when engaging with this CoP?
Real life meetups (“I’ve stopped completely to attend anything but real life meetups. They are the shit,” “We meet monthly on the first Tuesday and this is so cool because I can block that date long in advance to make sure I don’t miss a session,” “we meet weekly even if only 5–6 from our ~60 members are joining. We still find this the best rhythm for us.”
Slack (“Slack channel is primary, with regular optional Zoom meetings,” “Slack because it is so easy to use for everyone”)
Zoom calls (“I love our hosted Zoom calls and every one of us does host a session every once in a while,” “We have not had a lot of engagement. We do meetups every two months, all remote”)
Twitter (“I found these folks on Twitter so that’s how we stay in touch and are sharing ideas and great content”)
Circle (“We are all active in our closed Circle community”)
WhatsApp (“We have WhatsApp groups which is self moderated by people and there are a lot of learnings that is being shared here.”)
Conferences (“We stay in touch online and once a year we meet IRL by attending the same conference together”)
What are things that could be improved?
Nothing, I’m happy with the status quo (“None, really—great forum for product,” “nothing right now - all is running pretty smooth”)
Clearer rules: Should we invest time in community work? (“Incentives for participation,” “Would like to be more active—but is that rewarded?”)
I’d like to focus more on forming new bonds, getting to know my peers and learning from them (“Maybe a better way to set up informal peer-to-peer coaching?” “Networking has been difficult remotely,” “More time for networking”)
Facilitation & moderation could be better (“I think we should nominate a moderator per session,” “we are lacking a moderator”)
A content library for all the great things we are sharing (“Web based, interactive, storing and retrieving information library”)
A topics based agenda for the next few events (“Having a specific topic upfront so I know if joining is worth my time,” “Knowing in advance what are the main topics or areas that will be discussed,” “agenda for the next months”)
More engagement and more people being active (“too many lurkers,” “interaction rate is surprisingly low,” “making it less passive (feeling), higher engagement with others”)
Content and events for senior PMs and leadership folks (“topics need to be more on product leadership”)
Opening up for other roles/professions like design, user research, engineering, … (“sometimes feels a bit closed shop”)
Would love to go back to in-person events (“More options for live meeting times”)
Too few events. There’s no rhythm (“Frequency of the events is not good”)
More variety in session formats. Not only just talking (“Our CoP events are basically status updates—I think we should focus on learning and sharing best practices instead,” “organization of group activities not only us chatting to each other,” “I’d love to have the opportunity to practice skills together within our meetings.”)
Would you mind sharing the name of the Community? Sorted by # of mentions
This makes great inspiration for your product team!
Continuous Discovery Habits w/ Teresa Torres
Petra’s Product Leads Community (only for attendees of her group coachings)
My Product School Cohort
Software Product Group (e.g. ProdPad, Productboard, Miro, etc.)
ProductTank (Pune, Zurich, Berlin, Hamburg, Bogota)
Mulheres de Produto (Brazil)
🔖Answers from all participants
Now all participants, whether they participate in company internal or cross-organizational communities, have been asked the following questions:
Do you prefer big communities or specialized networks? Why?
Are you more of an active contributor or observer/consumer of information?
What are the positive effects you’ve seen since you joined a CoP?
Do you prefer big communities or specialized networks? Why?
Specialized
Specialized and small because I find the courage to contribute (“Specialized, because I feel like I can impact and contribute more,” “I can share my learnings only in trusted environments”)
Specialized because you need trust amongst attendees to make sessions valuable and conversations meaningful.
Specialized because of common ground given (“Specialized Networks because you don’t waste time explaining the challenges because they get your pain points and have similar experiences”)
Specialized because more engagement is likely (“Small Networks, More Personal and People Contribute more”)
“specialized networks, they contain the high quality info I want and less social fluff”
“Specialized, big networks can be filled with poorly thought out answers”
“Specialized networks help in bringing focused learning.”
“Specialized networks. When communities are too large, participants start to feel as though most items don’t apply to them and tune out.”
Big Communities
“big ones have more potential”
“Big communities because as PM I have many different focuses”
“Big because it allows me to hide a bit (I’m super introvert)”
Both
"Both. Big gives breadth. Small and specialized gives focus.”
“Combination of both. big network for larger trends, specialized network for more detailed discussions, local network for the chance to meet personally”
“It depends. Big communities give a sense of direction where the overall PM is heading to. Specialized networks for topics and interactions to hone specific PM skills”
“Big communities for the diversity of thought and breadth of people involved and then specialized sub groups for specific learning or conversations”
“Both, really. You want inside and outside perspectives”
Are you more of an active contributor or observer/consumer of information?
Observer/consumer (“currently: consumer; plan to become more active with more experience,” “Unfortunately only consumer of information”)
Both (“both, but maybe lean more into consumer of information,” “A bit of both. I tend to be more active if a topic is raised I am passionate about”)
Active contributor (“I’m part of a group of women trying to revitalize Women in Product on Slack,” “I am the organizer of the ProductTank chapter,” “I am more of an active contributor, in form of organizing events, selecting speakers/panels, helping build volunteers to steer the WhatsApp groups if it goes silent for couple of days”)
Observation from Petra: If people say they are more in an observer/consumer role, it often comes with the notion of “unfortunately” or “I would love to be more active.” If you’re the community host or leadership team, take note: Sometimes all these folks need is a little encouragement!
What are the positive effects you’ve seen since you joined a CoP?
Learned from others, gained new know-how or learned a new skill
“Learned how others are dealing with the problems I’m currently having”
“I tried different working methods and improved my daily work”
“optimizations for product process (easier to write a PRD)”
Helped me reflect on my skills and talents
“sense of a stack-ranked skill sets in the market and knowing my gaps”
Broadening my horizon / getting out of my comfort zone
“Wider knowledge of my field”
“Thinking Above your team”
“more frequent engagement with new product related ideas”
“Learning from others, new ideas of things to try”
Helped me navigate the company better
“Broadened my awareness of what my peers are doing and how they are doing it”
Helped me build my reputation
“Building my reputation in the company”
“I love to create content, coach, engage with broader groups and discuss debate about product.”
Helped me to see what already works well / how much we already know
“More reflection, less negativity about issues”
Meeting new people
“Yes, I have met interesting People”
“I expanded my networking, discovering very interesting companies and I reinforced some of the product areas such as Discovery for instance”
“extending my network”
A sense of belonging
“A sense of community during the pandemic”
Improved “soft” skills like communication, facilitation, moderation
“Improved my communication skills”
“My way of approaching people from different fields have been like 0-1. I can now speak to people from different domains, functions and roles.”
Helped me to understand what other companies are doing product management in a good way
“Helped me to spot potential new employers”
“Helped me to learn about job openings”
Had more fun
“Learnt more, build stronger relationships with colleagues, had more fun”
🤔 Answers from participants that are NOT part of any CoP
And, last but not least, the survey participants that are NOT part of any CoP got the question:
Why not?
What would make you consider joining one?
Why not?
Didn’t know there are external communities on product management (“Never heard about CoP but I find the concept very interesting”)
“Haven't found the right one yet”
“Have not considered it yet.”
“Don’t know how to find one”, “Definitely have to look for it outside my company and there I do not know where to start.”
“Don't know how to enter”
“Nobody approached me and offered me to join”
I’ve been wanting to start one but don’t know how to go about it
What would make you consider joining one?
Inspiring topics, people, and content (“interesting topics,” “inspiring group of people,” “meet people that do inspire me.”)
Timely feedback or answers to questions I’m having (“Having people around you / available who you can share your thoughts with and learn from each other.”)
Events that work with my schedule (“Formats I can attend despite my busy schedule,” “A good structure and time of getting together”)
People that have been through the challenges I'm facing now
What can we learn from this last group? Observation from Petra
People don’t know CoPs exist, they don’t know how to join, and they don’t know how to be an active member.
They need encouragement. Tell them that they exist, even if it seems obvious to you. Actively invite people. Help them to prioritize personal learning and sharing. Think about incentives/kudos. If you have a company internal CoP and if your company supports the CoP, make sure people know that they can participate and contribute during their regular working hours.
If you’re curious to learn more, find the high-level overview here and the detailed responses from company internal CoP participants here.