Dear Diane,
the only thing I do in an intensive manner with leadership before the
first event is to ask them to reflect on the prerequisites for an ost
event (which are the prerequisites for selforganisation) and to convince
themselves (and me) that they are in place.
Sometimes they wonder how they can support projects that people and
groups might come up with. I always encourage them not to promise
anything and not to provide up-front support for anything people come up
with, suggesting that people will not come up with stuff without
themselves having a strategy on how they can get support, if they need any.
Now, often, I assume, they dont believe a word I am saying. Also, rather
frequently, they try to get into the mode I described. And then I hear
things like "seems I have less to do then before" or "people dont come
to see me as often as they used to" or "people just go ahead with their
stuff, seems we have more leadership emerging".
Encouraged by that kind of feedback, I try to stay out of the way of all
the stuff facilitators should do, to....
One of the organisations that hired me to facilitate more than 20 os
events (very much by the book)for their organisation and their network
over the last 8 years believes to have had some transformational etc.
developements and other significant stuff occuring. I never spent any
time with them except to facilitate the 3,5 hour planning meeting a few
weeks before the event, facilitating the os events themselves and
sometimes the Next Meetings.
My reading on this is that the ost events gave them a bunch of windows
to see the selforganizing nature at the core of their organisation...the
rest they did themselves.
Love this conversation and it draws me away from awfully important work
I have to do, thanks.
Greetings from Berlin
mmp
Diane Gibeault schrieb:
Hi Michael, Thank you Michael for your comments about the group
identifying its collective priorities or not. If it's clear that the
follow-ups to the event are the responsibility of each participant
only and not of the event organizers, I agree that the
priority-setting step is not relevant. The outcome is based on
individual passion that may or may not be supported by the group. In
my experience with intact organizations, when collective priorities
were not set by the group, many participants felt the resources of
the organization were being channelled more to individuals interests
and that the organization did not have a clear focus as a whole.
A surplus of enthusiasm and commitment may be a nice “problem” to
have but it may be a damper when resources of the organization are
felt to be already too too thin. Not establishing collective
priorities requires that the leadership trusts its own capacities and
that of the members of the organization, to manage necessary
arrangements to actualize its priorities and activities. So to skip
the priority setting, it's important to ensure the leadership and the
group is open to having an unpredictable number of actions to
realize. The advantage, if they are open to this, is that management
communicates it has a high level of confidence in the capacity of
people to self-organize and to coordinate itself within the
parameters established by the leadership. But that most be true and
not just words. So testing the idea in advance with a a few people
(e.g. the organization committee which should be a microcosm of the
organization) may be wise.
An essential part of the facilitator's job is always to work with the
leadership before the event so they already think of ways they
themselves can adjust and ways to adapt their systems to bring the
necessary flexibility to integrate the newness and changes coming out
of an OS event. It is even more crucial work if no priorities will be
determined by the collective.
Diane
On 2010-09-08, at 6:58 AM, Michael M Pannwitz wrote:
Dear Diane, for quite a while now I no longer include "priority"
setting.
So, when Action Planning starts, its not on the basis of priorities
the group arrived at and its also not really on the basis of the
Book of Proceedings but actually only on the interest/passion
people have for a particular action or project NOW.(Probably, all
kinds of stuff from the previous two days and other considerations
enter). Thats posted just as at the beginning of an open space and
groups then assemble at the various "projects" and decide on action
(one or two or several steps even though I tell them the first step
is IT!)which is recorded on Next Step sheets which are made
available to everyone (Name of Project, people participating, next
steps, contact person).
What I find supports the quaint notion of sponsors around "action,
sustainability, follow up, etc." is to include the date of the next
meeting to follow the open space in the original invitation to the
event.
Have a great day greetings from Berlin mmp
Diane Gibeault schrieb:
Hi everyone, At a recent training workshop I facilitated in
Ottawa, some participants suggested an adaptation to the process
of action planning for priorities set by the group after
discussions. This option - One Market Place Per Priority - offers
a convergence process with more space for self-organization,
which is the fundamental intent of Open Space. Participants
choose which of the priorities they have passion to work on and
regroup accordingly. Then each priority group opens space by
itself and creates its own action market wall in relations to its
specific priority. Among the action topics posted, nothing
precludes that someone may propose a discussion of the priority
itself. This "one market place per priority" method is still a
more structured approach that the option of opening space again
for action with only one market place for everybody as they
express their passion for actions on any of the identified
priorities. For those organizations who prefer to structure the
action identification a bit more, this new option still opens
more space than having groups come up with only one action per
priority which is what ends up happening in most cases despite
the invitation to identify more than one action - at least this
is what I have seen over many years of OS events. To provide some
guidance to the various priority groups who will self-organize to
open space and create their own market place for action, I added
a few simple guiding steps on top of the Action Planning Guide
which is usually in their kit or distributed on chairs before the
start of convergence. I share them with you in case you may find
it useful. A. Create a market place of actions that will
contribute to realize the priority you have chosen. - Post the
priority title at the top of a wall. - Each participant can post
on that wall, an action title with his/her name. - Then,
combinations of action sheets can be made if desired, by
participants initiating the actions. B. Participants form groups
around actions of their choice Action Initiator role – with help
from the group: - Posts high on the wall the action title so it
is visible to bumblebees. - Circulates a sheet to create a list
of participants. - Notes key points (the group may want to use
the planning guide provided). - After the discussion, prepares
and posts a summary on one or two flip chart pages on the plenary
wall for all participants to read during a walk about that will
follow. - Registers at the News Room and enters the action plan
on a computer. Maybe some of you have already used this method of
"one market place per priority". If so, learnings from your
experience would be most welcome. Gifts come from everywhere in
Open Space, as it is a circle of people open to possibilities.
Thank you to the participants of the Ottawa training group for
bringing to light this different way of doing which is full of
possibilities. Diane * *
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Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 402 resident
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--
Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49-30-772 8000
[email protected]
www.boscop.org
Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 402 resident Open
Space Workers in 69 countries working in a total of 141 countries worldwide
Have a look:
www.openspaceworldmap.org
*
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