My personal experience has been that World Café does some of the things that OS does, but in a much more controlling fashion. Doing them in combination therefore seems to be a questionable practice. As near as I can figure out, there is nothing that will happen in Café that will not also occur in OS -- and OS offers many more possibilities. So why not go for the whole enchilada??? Typical responses to that question usually come down to the comfort level of the sponsor, the facilitator or both. In a word, there is a fear that the participants won't be able to "make it in Open Space" without some preparation, which Café is seen to provide. As long as the presenting issue meets the criteria of use for OS (real business issue about which people truly care, lots of complexity, diversity and conflict -- with a decision time of yesterday) -- everybody seems to do just fine. And doing a Café first often elicits the comment from participants -- "That was nice, but why did we waste the time?"
Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20845 Phone 301-365-2093 Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Chris Macrae Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 1:48 AM To: [email protected] Subject: what happens when you mix OS and world cafe I am trying to understand what the difference in outcome is between a day spent in open space and a day that mixes open space and cafe -latter case here http://www.theworldcafe.com/storyconversing.html Worse I am coming from a situation where I would have been happy with open space but the powers that choose sound like they will go for the mixture. (And yes the one day feels like another cramping factor) I am taking a first guess that Open Space is better where there is conflict resolution on all sides and indeed the normal powers that be are part of the communal problem. OS and cafe may have an advantage if like the charette there are some expert parameters that are going to need to be built (eg if an architect is designing something in a town at the end of the day the co-creation has to stand up to being architecturally stable) Is that a correct first guess? And what other major differences are there/ eg is there something about Open Space being better if you want the people to reconcile with each other and continually network around their shared situation whereas the OS & Cafe may be more about one product development decision where neither of these issues (there may not be people-based hidden agendas to start with and the need for people to continuously reconcile viewpoints from that day on may not be as primary as it would be in peacemaking context) may be so big? Help! chris macrae * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
