I remember a simple framing from Harrison when first learning about OST. He said you can have a great conversation in one day. A second day provides time for a sense of direction to emerge. In 2.5 days, there's time to set priorities. That characterization fits my experience.
I have either run or participated in a few OS's that were more than 2.5 days. I find they are great for truly internalizing the law of 2 feet. When explicitly invited to spend days and days in Open Space, people become more facile at paying attention to their own internal rhythm. Peggy On Apr 3, 2010, at 1:27 AM, Michael M Pannwitz wrote: > Dear Doug, > when I started facilitating os-events I was still employed by the Protestant > Church of Berlin as an OD-consultant. Most of my work was with parishes and > most of the participants were working folks who were able and ready to follow > the invitation to an event that started > -Friday afternoon (about 3pm and could go to 7pm) > -Saturday all day but not before 10 am so people could still do their weekend > shopping (the hours shops were open was much more regulated back then, 1996, > then today) > -Sunday, sometimes in the morning but often in the afternoon so that > participants could attend worship services, get a lunch at the event at about > 12:30 and stay until 16:30, enough to do a thorough Action Planning. > So, thats how a 16 hour event spread over 3 days became fairly common in my > first year (1996-1997) with 16 events in that year. > There were shorter events (4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours, a day and a half, etc.) > but it was very impressive to see how "16 hours spread over three days, > sleeping twice" differed from shorter designs, even from 16 hours (same > amount of time) spread over 2 days, sleeping once. > (By the way, "16 hours spread over three days, sleeping twice" has long been > the "formula" with the Future Search crowd). > Later, when I worked with os all over, and also facilitated two full days and > a half I could not really find those additional hours in the morning of the > first day adding much to the os...half a day, a whole day and half a day > seemed to work just perfect...it was also the only design where I never heard > anyone saying in the Closing Circle "we should have had more time" or similar > statements. These time related statements are always to hear in shorter > designs. > I have never been in an event or facilitated one that went over more than 3 > days BUT I have heard of such events and as I remember folks involved in them > felt that the additional time had not been needed. > This seems to be supported by remarks in Closing Circles where people > occasionally have said that now they are ready to go home and move on and > that the time was just right or that they didn't feel they could > continue..."happily exhausted", someone once said. > I have read about longer os events in a brochure issued by the Peace Corps > that used os in their trainings quite a while back...would not be surprised > if they still do. > The WOSonOS this year in Berlin employs a full 2,5 day design...and as far as > I know that has been its design regarding the length for many years. The use > of Action Planning in the last half day is now also being employed every now > and then but I think was not part of the early tradition...it will be part of > the design in Berlin. > I see you and another 10 folks from the USA are coming...great opportunity to > have a breakout session on that topic. Having a total of presently 126 people > from 25 countries attending will definitely provide plenty of diversity not > to mention High Play, High Learning und no small amount of Productivity and > Fun! > Here is the link for those of you wanting to see the updated information: >> http://www.boscop.org/events/508-wosonos-2010 > > You are all invited to come! > Greetings from springtime Berlin > mmp > > > > > douglas germann schrieb: >> Hi-- >> Where did the idea for 2 1/2 days come from? Why not 4 or 5 or 3? >> :- Doug. >> * >> * >> ========================================================== >> osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu >> ------------------------------ >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, >> view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: >> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html >> To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: >> http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist > > -- > Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg > Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany > ++49-30-772 8000 > mmpa...@boscop.org > www.boscop.org > > > Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 389 resident Open Space > Workers in 67 countries working in a total of 139 countries worldwide > Have a look: > www.openspaceworldmap.org > > * > * > ========================================================== > osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu > ------------------------------ > To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, > view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: > http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html > > To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: > http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist > * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
