Definition:
CoPs stands for Communities of Practice, an organised groups of people who share common interest in a particular domain or area creating an opportunity to learn from each other to develop personally and professionally.
Here learning occurs in social context that emerge and evolve when people having common goals interact as they strive towards their goals. This concept is credited to Jean Lave and Etienne Webger, who referred to the communities of practitioners where newcomers would enter and attempt to learn the sociocultural practices of the community. These practices were associated with knowledge management as people begun to see them as ways of developing social capital, nurturing new knowledge, stimulating innovation or sharing existing tacit knowledge within an organisation which is accepted as a part of organisational development.
CoPs plays a crucial part in scaling agility, and this makes it a part of SAFe framework. CoPs are highly organic, informal networks designed specifically for efficient knowledge sharing and exploration across teams, trains and the entire organisation. Role based Communities of Practices to name a few are PO/PMs, Scrum Master’s, Developers, UX Designers or Systems Engineers CoPs.
Further Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_practice
http://www.innovativelearning.com/teaching/communities_of_practice.html
https://www.scaledagileframework.com/communities-of-practice/