Mind tree case study
1. a) How does MindTree create, develop, and sustain communities of practice? b) What role do they play at the company?
Answer: a) MindTree encourages employees who share a common passion to form groups or communities for learning, knowledge sharing, business development, or self-development. People passionate about any particular topic have to attend a workshop to prove his/her commitment to the topic. If selected, these volunteers, called “Champions”, are allowed to form and lead communities. Each group is led by multiple champions, who want to take on the role and are passionate enough to reach out to others. The selected community champions then determine the process by which other employees, who have a commonality of purpose, become part of the community. Members collectively and collaboratively determine their community’s objectives, and champions then drive the group toward meeting those objectives. The basic objectives of the communities are learning and knowledge sharing.
Champions are responsible for sustaining communities by ensuring that their communities make progress on their goals, while motivating people to think and act on their own. When the objectives of a community are fulfilled, it is either closed, or morphed into a different community or transitioned to a higher level of maturity from community of interest to capacity building.
b) The IT-BPO industry is a fast changing industry. The knowledge intensive products provided by the industry mature over time and become commodities. As stated by Soota, MindTree is a combination of consulting-led IT-services business and intellectual property-led R&D-services business. The IT-services business has a lot of intellectual capital in tacit and un-codified form. The R&D services require unique solutions for different projects and therefore the relevant knowledge can not be codified. Both the businesses are closely knit through a matrix structure of employees. Successful codification strategy needs
Answer: a) MindTree encourages employees who share a common passion to form groups or communities for learning, knowledge sharing, business development, or self-development. People passionate about any particular topic have to attend a workshop to prove his/her commitment to the topic. If selected, these volunteers, called “Champions”, are allowed to form and lead communities. Each group is led by multiple champions, who want to take on the role and are passionate enough to reach out to others. The selected community champions then determine the process by which other employees, who have a commonality of purpose, become part of the community. Members collectively and collaboratively determine their community’s objectives, and champions then drive the group toward meeting those objectives. The basic objectives of the communities are learning and knowledge sharing.
Champions are responsible for sustaining communities by ensuring that their communities make progress on their goals, while motivating people to think and act on their own. When the objectives of a community are fulfilled, it is either closed, or morphed into a different community or transitioned to a higher level of maturity from community of interest to capacity building.
b) The IT-BPO industry is a fast changing industry. The knowledge intensive products provided by the industry mature over time and become commodities. As stated by Soota, MindTree is a combination of consulting-led IT-services business and intellectual property-led R&D-services business. The IT-services business has a lot of intellectual capital in tacit and un-codified form. The R&D services require unique solutions for different projects and therefore the relevant knowledge can not be codified. Both the businesses are closely knit through a matrix structure of employees. Successful codification strategy needs