Getting started with an automation community of practice

Whether you're in healthcare, finance, manufacturing or government, automation is a critical tool for enhancing efficiency and streamlining processes. But can your organization effectively use the capabilities of automation and continually improve upon them? This is a common problem organizations face. Many find the solution by forming a community of practice, a group of people sharing a common interest or passion who collaborate regularly to learn, improve, and share knowledge. Establishing an automation community of practice fosters innovation, improves collaboration, and optimizes your organization's automation efforts.

What is an automation community of practice?

Communities of practice can form around various topics, such as project management, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, or, in this case, automation. A community of practice is a group of people who come together around a shared interest to share knowledge, solve problems, and develop expertise over time. Unlike teams or task forces, which often focus on specific goals and deliverables, a community of practice is about long-term learning, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Community members can come from different departments, roles, or skill levels. Instead of obsessing over achieving immediate results, a good community of practice focuses on learning, sharing best practices, and evolving together.

Why start an Ansible automation community of practice?

Automation is a crucial capability for modern organizations, allowing them to improve operational efficiency, reduce errors, and to save time. Automation can significantly benefit your organization by automating routine tasks and complex workflows. However, the real power of automation comes from collective expertise and continuous learning.

Starting an automation community of practice allows an organization to:

• Share best practices across teams and departments
• Improve knowledge retention by documenting and sharing lessons learned
• Foster innovation by encouraging cross-functional collaboration and creative problem-solving
• Accelerate skill development by enabling ongoing learning and mentoring opportunities
• Reduce redundancies by aligning automation efforts across the organization

By establishing a community of practice, you provide a structured environment for collaboration and continuous improvement, helping teams to get the most out of automation’s capabilities.

Five steps to start a community of practice

In the blog entitled Accelerating adoption of automation through a community of practice, author Walter Bentley identifies a list of questions to ask before creating a community of practice. Once those questions have been answered and you are ready to get started, follow these five steps: 

1. Define your mission and goals

The first step in starting any community of practice is defining the "why". Before the community can begin working, it's essential to have a clear understanding of its mission and specific goals.

The mission provides the overarching purpose for the community of practice, serving as a guiding statement that answers the question: Why does this community exist? This mission might involve promoting automation best practices, increasing organizational efficiency, or enabling innovation through shared knowledge.

Once the mission is clear, it's time to establish concrete, measurable goals. These goals should align with the community's mission and provide a roadmap for what the team will work toward. For example, your goals might include:

• Creating a repository of reusable Ansible Playbooks
• Hosting monthly knowledge-sharing sessions
• Developing organization-wide automation standards
• Onboarding new members and fostering continuous skill development

Action: Organize a workshop or brainstorming session with stakeholders to collaboratively define the community of practice's mission and outline achievable short-term and long-term goals. Ensure the mission resonates with the broader organizational objectives and inspires participation from the community.

2. Identify key stakeholders and sponsors

The next step in starting a community of practice is identifying the key stakeholders who will support and participate in the community. Look for people across the organization with experience or an interest in automation. These individuals can come from different roles—IT teams, DevOps engineers, system administrators, sales, or even managers who oversee projects that rely on automation.

Additionally, securing support from executive sponsors is important for ensuring the longevity of the group. Executive sponsors can provide the resources, visibility, and legitimacy needed to help the community of practice grow. They can also advocate for the importance of automation and help align the community of practice goals with broader organizational objectives.

Action: Meet with potential stakeholders and sponsors to gauge their interest in forming the community of practice. Explain how the community can enhance the organization’s automation efforts and provide long-term value.

3. Invite members from diverse teams

A key aspect of any successful community of practice is diversity. You should include members from various departments, teams, and levels of expertise. This diversity will bring different perspectives and ensure that the community benefits from a broad range of experiences and ideas.

Encourage participation from non-technical professionals—managers, project leads, and operations staff can offer valuable insights into how automation affects overall business goals. They can also help ensure that automation efforts align with broader organizational objectives.

It is also vital to ensure that the leadership of the community of practice is inclusive and respectful of different time zones, departments, and roles within the organization.

Action: Create a communication plan to invite employees across the organization to join the community. Explain the value of participation and emphasize that both technical and non-technical members are welcome.

4. Create a central knowledge repository

An essential component of an automation community of practice is a central knowledge repository where members can share resources, playbooks, and documentation. This repository should be easily accessible to all community members and organized in a way that makes it easy to find relevant information.

A repository may include:

• Ansible Playbooks and automation scripts
• Best practices for automation and task management
• Documentation of common challenges and how they were solved
• Tutorials and guides for new community members learning automation

This repository will become a valuable resource for the organization, making it easier for new members to onboard and existing members to improve their skills.

Action: Set up a shared knowledge platform, such as a wiki or a shared folder, and encourage members to contribute regularly.

5. Organize regular meetings and knowledge-sharing sessions

Once you’ve established the core membership of your community of practice, it’s time to start organizing regular meetings and knowledge-sharing sessions.

These sessions can take various forms, such as:

• Show-and-tell sessions: Where members present recent automation projects or playbooks they've developed
• Workshops:  Hands-on sessions where members can collaboratively solve automation challenges
• Guest speakers:  Inviting external automation experts to share insights and industry trends
• Office hHours: Experts offer time to answer questions and share tips and tricks with other automation users

Consistency is key to keeping the community engaged, so schedule these sessions regularly—whether weekly, biweekly, or monthly.

Action: Create a schedule of events for the first quarter. Encourage members to take turns leading sessions and offer interactive learning and discussion opportunities.

Benefits of an Ansible automation community of practice

By creating a community of practice for Ansible Automation Platform, you foster a culture of continuous learning and collaboration within your organization. The community of practice can lead to tangible benefits, such as:

• Increased efficiency through the sharing of Ansible Playbooks and best practices
• Improved collaboration across teams and departments, opening silos and promoting cross-functional cooperation
• Faster problem-solving by leveraging collective expertise to address common automation challenges
• Ongoing innovation through experimentation and the implementation of new automation features and capabilities
• Professional growth as members develop automation skills and apply them to real-world projects

In the long term, the community of practice not only helps your organization maximize the value of automation, but also build a foundation for broader automation efforts across the entire operation.

Conclusion

Starting an automation community of practice is a powerful way to unlock the potential of automation within an organization. By fostering collaboration, continuous learning, and shared knowledge, you can drive efficiency, innovation, and professional growth.

Additional resources

• Get expert guidance kicking off your automation community of practice with Red Hat Consulting
• Hear from our top customers about how they approach their automation strategy

Enable automation learning, productivity, and collaboration with Ansible plug-ins for Red Hat Developer Hub.