My experience is that doing something "formal" first, followed by Open Space works very well. And it certainly isn't "blended" in any sense I would understand. What doesn't work is inserting Open Space into something else or inserting something else into Open Space. By "not working," I mean that the flow is broken and people become confused even if they are apparently following along. The only down side of doing what you propose is that people will come up at the end to ask why they "wasted" all that time at the beginning? Doesn't always happen, but it happens often enough to make me notice. Have fun.
Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Dr. Potomac, MD 20854 USA Phone 301-365-2093 www.openspaceworld.com www.ho-image.com (Personal Website) To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bernd Weber Sent: Friday, April 29, 2011 7:03 AM To: OSLIST Subject: [OSList] Once again: Blending OST with Training - an absolute NO NO? Hi All Last month I posted about a new Learning Workshop Format-in-production: "Participants can learn (1) to play with surface waves/breakers with their bodies (2) use the "waves-of-change" metaphor in reflecting their experiences as change agents and change facilitators in the light of 1 and (3)equilibrate these two levels of movement by mental non-movement and physical slow movement according to the Stress Management Technique "Cyclic Meditation" as recently developed at SVYASA Yoga University Bangalore/India where I have learned it in January" During my design work I got the strong feeling, that I would like make the training/learning part as focussed and concentrated as possible and then to "open up" for mutual learning of the participants. It will be a heterogeneous crowd with a lot of experience (English and German speakers, experienced Change agents in Education and professional Consultants, Change Facilitators. So I thought, I can only "kick-them-off" in a concentrated training but then they better self-organize asap for action planning in the sense of "How could we Play with the Waves of Change Back Home". And there it was: the idea to do a 2,5 day Training and then a 1,5 day OST event. I reacted very ambivalent to my own idea. One one hand the result of many discussions in the OSLIST and my own experience show, that OST is best, when "stand-alone" and "not blended": I thought: A training up front would probably re-inforce the everyday "anti-self-organization" habits; the invitation procedure can not be done properly; it will not be a large group anyhow; Where is the burning issue and the urgency? etc. pp. On the other hand I could not get rid of the idea. It seemed to be the right thing to do, since my WS methodology is also oriented towards self-organization and then I know: working in the OST format (even if not doing it in the purest way) simply is the most effective way of moving things ahead. I got stuck finally. Could not continue working on my WS-Design without a clear decision. So I decided to ask the interested ones and the potential participants directly by putting that question into a survey monkey questionnaire(you might have a look at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SBPQW6C) I thought: If people say "we want it" why not? On the other hand: making nonsense because "people say they want it" is also not the finest style. So I would humbly ask you: what do you think? Bernd (in Colombo/Sri Lanka right now) Bernd Weber Change Facilitation s.r.o., A Global Partner Who Makes Change Happen in Complex Environments; www.change-facilitation.com, www.change-facilitation.org, www.change-management-toolbook.com, www.change-management-blog.com; [email protected]; Austria Mobile: +43 6641354828, Landline + 431 5968657; Sri Lanka landline +94 11 2785859, iPhone: +94 777740757, mobile +94 71 6090839
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