Create a community of automation builders across the different teams involved to help each other grow by sharing their own experiences.

Overview

An important part of scaling automation adoption is the people and their organization. Typically, enterprises need to share their automation strategy to allow every individual to understand their role in achieving the overall business goal. More organizations today are creating cross-functional or product-focused teams to facilitate collaboration.

But a major challenge to both individual and organizational adoption of automation is that it can require both documented and tacit knowledge applied to practical scenarios. Information systems such as resource centers can help facilitate explicit knowledge sharing across teams. However, applying this knowledge in practice will also depend on the context in which it is being used. For example, a resource center may provide documented best practices for a standard approach to managing errors in automations, however, someone building business-critical automations may require additional guidance to manage exceptions.

People within an organization already share such information across groups in a manner that helps them carry out their tasks. Often, such information sharing may not follow a defined structure. Realizing this social nature of the organization and facilitating such communication for better decision making can improve adoption. Structuring an organization that promotes a culture of cross-team collaboration through its systems and processes can result in better information sharing.  

A community provides such a cross-team collaboration to a group of members interested in the enterprise automation domain to come together for sharing knowledge, solving problems, and exploring new approaches to support business needs. Community allows bringing a wide array of information from different organizational information networks. Such an environment not only allows people to generate new ideas based on the experiences of others but also avoids the need to reinvent the wheel by sharing best practices between groups.

Building an internal automation community is a valuable resource because it promotes peer collaboration and provides employees with access to expanded resources and expertise. Communities are also an effective way to let people know how automation can solve their business problems. Building this understanding of automation is a powerful way to inform and excite your teams.

Even in the early stages of your automation journey, communities are a vital tool in driving automation adoption as they galvanize knowledge sharing, learning and change. Successful automation communities:

• Provide a safe, informal environment that values practical experience, diverse perspectives and learning from peers.
• Promote creativity, conversations, collaboration, idea exchange and sharing of best practices/tips/tricks.
• Build connections and relationships across teams (break down organizational barriers and bust silos).
• Allow new community members to learn and obtain practical guidance from seasoned members and develop trusting relationships.
• Offer space for feedback, help and problem solving (specific to your automations) that can bring high levels of trust and authenticity to your automation initiatives.

For communities to be effective, they require structure and oversight and must establish goals that focus on issues/priorities of the organization and its members. Learn how you can create your community of automation practice in our guide — Building your Automation Community.

Resources

GEARS Assets