tl;dr Wenger and Snyder's Harvard Business Review article about 'Communities of Practice'. These are semi-formal collaborations of peers that the authors felt w

tl;dr Wenger and Snyder's Harvard Business Review article about 'Communities of Practice'. These are semi-formal collaborations of peers that the authors felt were distinct from project teams, work groups, and informal networks. They felt that guilds and business councils are good analogs, but they can be more focused when composed of people from within a single (corporate) organization. The format is usually self directed, whether a gathering for expressly demonstrating industry knowledge [0] or a grievence session where members might collaborate on each other's issues [1]. Wenger and Snyder noted different organizational support for these communities, like American Management Systems using membership as an overt reward and requiring a project to qualify. The authors, however, suggest that the sponsoring organization should take systemmatic polls or interviews about the effectiveness of the practice, to avoid overestimating based on one or two reviews, or letting it become a rest session. [0] https://blog.hubspot.com/service/lunch-and-learn https://blog.hubspot.com/service/lunch-and-learn [1] https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/cross-departmental-collaboration https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/cros... This seems like, when formally provided time for members, an organization inculcating such a movement overtly tries to fulfill the upper parts of Maslow's Hierarchy. I think that such an effort fits under the same budget as allowing self-directed study time during work hours.