Greetings All,
I recently received an invitation to open space twice (2 locations
scheduled one week apart) for a very large USA organization. Both events
in both locations had many hundreds in attendance; we arranged seating
for 400 at the 2nd event. (see link and pic listed below.) All in all
over 1100 persons in total received an invite to one or the other of
these events.
I learned a few things that I am sharing here now. My intention in
sharing is to help others who might find themselves arranging and
executing larger-attendance Open Space events....
The general theme of the learning has everything to do with that idea of
'one less thing to do'....
===============================================
Thing1: Opening circle
===============================================
At the 1st event, when the moment of invitation arrived, I simply placed
the microphone very slowly in the center of the circle.. and very slowly
walked away, and found myself a seat. They figured the rest out
...without any assistance whatsoever from me. Awkwardness was replaced
by flow as they realized I wasn't doing anything and the group advised
itself.
At the 2nd event, the client knew me and the process by then. So, after
putting that microphone down, I just went all the way ...and slowly
vacated the circle completely. It worked great...and felt really good
too. I stood motionless well away from the circle for several minutes
before moving slowly along to a new place and repeating that until I
circled-the-circle exactly one time.
I plan to keep doing something like this going forward.
Any stuff that needed "managing" was handled by the group without any
help from me.
One less thing...
===============================================
Thing2: Marketplace "help"
===============================================
For large gatherings, some OST sages suggest situating 'helpers' at the
time-space grid, presumably to assist participants if they need it.
Not having done any OST events larger than 230 members, I was kind of
unsure about what to do about this. Felt to much like "managing stuff"
to me. So for the 2nd event I decided to omit any Marketplace assistance
whatsoever from the experience-design, even though the group was much
larger than my experience.
After I slowly and deliberately explained and demonstrated the process
of posting to the Marketplace, I laid the microphone down at center very
deliberately, and slowly vacated the circle. And observed what they were
going to do. And almost immediately this one guy (who posted early)
lingered at the Marketplace. And he took it upon himself to orient
anyone who had a question. Some of those he oriented then began also
orienting the others.
One less thing....
===============================================
Thing3: Space-Time Grid of Post-Its
===============================================
We expected 400++ so we had 18 session spaces and 5 1-hour time slots.
We we built a grid with 5 time-rows and 18 space-columns, with each
time-row a single color. Total 5X18=90 session tags. The 5 times were
coded in 5 colors.
When it became obvious the attendance was under 300, we simply draped a
"curtain" of Post-It flip-chart pages over the rightmost end of these 5
time-rows to truncate the number of available spaces from 18 to 13, for
a total of :
[5 timerows] X [13 spacecolumns] = [65 total session tags]
...After the start of the first session-time we later exposed additional
space-columns 14 and 15 (each with 5 time-rows) so folks could add up to
10 more sessions throughout the day if they wanted to do that. We also
placed the microphone over there.
===============================================
Thing 4: Whoops: Marketplace crowded by the circle; 1 MORE thing to do....
===============================================
...When we arrived the evening ahead of the event, this epic circle of
400 chairs (see pics and links) was situated in the very center of room.
The circle was clearly crowding the Marketplace.
It became obvious that about 50 chairs needed to be moved before the
Marketplace opened. We were told we could not move any chairs that
evening. (Something about facilities.) With the client, we decided to do
the following:
...At the moment just before the Marketplace was declared open, we
paused everyone and asked those 50 people seated in those 50 chairs if
they might be willing to get up, pick up their chair, and carry it over
to the opposite side of the space. It took about 45 seconds for the
group to move those 50 chairs. Thereafter we declared the Marketplace open.
All in all a great event ensued. It was a large learning experience for
all of us who took part in arranging and executing these two larger events.
===============================================
Thing 5: Huge closing circle, not much time...
===============================================
Some more experienced Open Space friends suggested having 2 or more
"runners" each 2 microphones running around, instead of passing the
microphone from hand to hand. The so-called "popcorn" method. Imagining
this made me feel very uncomfortable, so I rejected it. I did not have
an alternative at the time but realized I had the current day and the
whole next day to come up with something.
So I slept on it.
I woke up with this: Closing circle: "Now we pass the microphone around,
to express what we think and feel, about our experience
together...before we start, take a look to your right and notice the [2]
people sitting closest to you .. (pregnant pause). Now look to the left
and notice those two folks also .. (pregnant pause). When you get the
microphone, *connect with those two people to your left, and you all
decide who is going to talk.* Then go, and when done, pass the
microphone to the next [3] people."
...the numbers 2 and 3 can be configured to match the situation at hand,
such that the closing can include everyone and stay within the time
constraint.
One less thing to do?
Kind Regards,
Daniel
Link to larger picture:
https://twitter.com/DanielMezick/status/563596914193891328
--
Daniel Mezick, President
New Technology Solutions Inc.
(203) 915 7248 (cell)
Bio <http://newtechusa.net/dan-mezick/>. Blog
<http://newtechusa.net/blog/>. Twitter <http://twitter.com/#%21/danmezick/>.
Examine my new book:The Culture Game
<http://newtechusa.net/about/the-culture-game-book/>: Tools for the
Agile Manager.
Explore Agile Team Training
<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-training/> and Coaching.
<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-coaching/>
Explore the Agile Boston <http://newtechusa.net//user-groups/ma/>Community.
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