How I would Organize a Meeting of a CoP

As I discussed in “A CoP is Collaborative Learning, not Lecture,” it is past time to stop treating professionals as college kids (it is also past time to stop teaching college kids that way, but another subject). Lectures have their place. There is undoubtedly a high need for information transfer events (but even these can be better structured), and there will always be a need for GAMP5 workshops, training courses, and webinars on a specific topic.

But that is not the place of a community of practice.

I’ve written in the past some ways I prefer to structure professional engagements, such as poster sessions and an unconference. I have demonstrated some ways I think we can do this better. So, let’s turn our attention to what a better GAMP5 community of practice session could look like

We aim to connect, communicate, share, collaborate, and dialogue. So, what would a six-hour event look like?

Noon to 1:00—Networking and poster session. We have a lot of introverts in this industry, so help folks connect by doing it in a structured way. Posters are excellent as they can serve as a springboard for conversation. All the presentations that started about ISPE and GAMP5, what the GAMP5 plans are for the next two years, and current regulatory trends are posters.

1:00-2:00—Think-Pair-Share: There will be three rounds of 15 minutes each, each with a different topic. Each participant will have an 11×17 piece of paper to take notes of the other person’s thoughts. Post.

2:00 to 2:30: Review thoughts, brainstorm a theme, and propose.

2:30 to 2:45: N/5 voting for top themes

2:30 to 3:30 – Mock audit, fishbowl style. Deep dive on a particular issue, audit style.

3:30 to 4:30 -Unconference-style breakouts of the themes. Each working group comes out with a hand-drawn poster (or more based on how productive the group is)

4:30 to 5:00 – Present ideas

5:00 to 6:00 – Network, discuss ideas. Add to them.

Hit the bar/restaurant.

Publish the results, and continue to work on the online forum.