Book Review: Building Successful Communities

This is a book review of Building Successful Communities of Practice by Emily Webber.
Disclaimer: Or book links are part of the Amazon affiliate program.

Why I read it?

As some of you may be aware few months ago I’ve been given the function of leader for Test Automation Community, in the Objectivity.

I am not ashamed to admit I lack the knowledge and experience for this role. So I have started looking for some help. Book  Building Successful Communities of Practice was recommended to me by a member of Ministry of Testing Slack. And I am thankful for that recommendation.

How was it?

I can wholeheartedly recommend this book. Usually, that kind of book is full abstracts ideas which make you think yeah that good idea!
But when you want to use a given concept you have no idea HOW.
This book is different, yes it has theory and explanation of different concepts but it has a lot of pointers how to implement them.

I especially like the book structure. It starts with explaining the values of community and its life cycle.

Next chapters and the biggest part of the book are dedicated to explaining how to start a community, from finding its goals, finding members, to organising the first few meetings.

Last chapters are dedicated to how to grow the community and make it self-sustaining.

Personally, I love how short the book is – my Kindle Reader estimated read time for less than 1 hour. My actual time was like 3 hours but it included rereading big chunks of the book and taking notes. And actually planning how to improve community I am part of.

My Recommendation

There is one caveat in this review – the effort of my work and to some degree, the actual worth of this book I will be able to estimate after a few months.

But for now, I hugely recommend this book.

For whom is this book: Community leaders and people who try to create community. But any member who wants to help his community grow will find this book useful.

Thank you for reading! If you want to check my other reviews click here.

If you have some intresting book you want me to read leave its name in comments.

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