Appendix B. ACB COP Charter

Agency Capability Building: Community of Practice Community of Practice Charter

Background

NCHRP 20-44(40) Implementing the Agency Capability Building (ACB) Framework to Activate Organizational Change includes the establishment of a Community of Practice (COP). The COP will be developed for exchanging information about relevant change forces, the resultant new or enhanced capabilities needs they create, and effective strategies and resources for developing capabilities. It will also help build critical mass for the resource base over time. An early task of the COP is to identify the community’s scope, objectives, proposed activities, and timeline for tasks. This document also documents how the COP will work together, and the measures that will be used to show progress.

Scope

The charter scope is an overview of the anticipated outcomes. ACB COP will provide input to enhance awareness, engagement, and participation of agencies in ACB base of knowledge. Specifically, the ACB COP will:

• Test the use of the ACB Framework and share their experiences with the broader transportation community via the ACB Portal.
• Enhance the guidance with practical examples to strengthen the ACB resources. This will continue to build awareness and use of the ACB Framework over time.
• Provide feedback on peer exchanges, promotional materials, pilots, and workshops.

Vision

Our vision is to contribute insights to help agencies activate organizational change through capability building.

The purpose of the implementation effort is to facilitate the use of the ACB framework and portal by communicating its value and content through multiple communications and outreach media, conducting presentations on benefits and use, and piloting and documenting the use of the framework. Any activities that are not included in the NCHRP Project 20-44(40) research plan and do not contribute to meeting its objectives will not be undertaken by the COP during the project.

The research team will work with the COP on a transition plan for long-term ownership of the portal resource base. COP members will revisit the Charter upon the project’s completion to ensure sustainability.

Objectives

The charter objectives are the implementation steps that the COP will undertake. These represent project artifacts and milestones that contribute toward the achievement of the project scope. For the purposes of this project, they include:

• Provide input on the ACB Framework, including trends, capability needs, and strategies
• Review and provide feedback on the communication and outreach materials, including content, messaging, and media
• Finalize charter review and approval
• Provide advice on the lineup and design of the peer exchanges and workshop
• Submit examples of good practices within their own agencies
• Review final project deliverables

Proposed Activities

The following activities will be completed in support of the project objectives:

Note: The actual date of the Workshop has not been set, and timing may impact the date of Meeting 5.

Assumptions

The following describes the inherent assumptions regarding COP membership:

How We Will Work Together

The ACB COP is committed to working together effectively to achieve the scope outlined in this document. To achieve these results, COP members agree to:

• Work together as peers
• Maintain open and consistent communication
• Collaborate on decisions (2/3 consensus)
• Respect and support other members’ decisions

How We Measure Success and Report Results

The ACB COP will track three dimensions of effective communication and collaboration:

• Awareness, as demonstrated by Google Analytics web hits on the ACB Portal. The goal is to continue to see an upward trend over the course of the project.
• Participation, as evidenced by the number of resources and use cases added to the resource base.
• Ease of Use, as measured by a survey of participating agencies.

Charter Revision History