Dear Kerry and others on this discussion 'second time around' You raise some very important issues there! This is indeed something I was wondering about, it is about the claims the Open Space Technology makes about its pertinence to change.
I am fully convinced that Open Space is a marvelous tool to stimulate individual creativity; spontaneous collaboration (for the duration of the Open Space event); and an expression of trust in people by the client (in other words the ones who bought / decided for the Open Space event). However Kerry uses a crucial word and that is the word 'process'. Many if not most Open Spaces are only very short blips (events) in typically much longer processes of change. But the Open Space does not really address that issue nor does it really offer (as far as I know) options on how to proceed beyond the time-bound Open Space event. I am not a professional facilitator of short term events, in the sense that I only live of assignments for such one time events. Rather I work as a facilitator of long term processes in a specific sector (since 8 years the water sector). When dealing with long term processes of change, as a facilitator, one is obliged (I feel) to think beyond one time events and rather constantly look for options and 'most appropriate' facilitation methods and tools for specific phases or steps in such processes. That means that one time Open Space may seem adequate, another time it can be one of the many other methods, tools, instruments that are at the disposal of a facilitator. In the example mentioned by Kerry, I would typically have to think (together with people involved in the process) on how to best facilitate commitment and follow up to reach the objectives set in the process. At times, I must admit, I feel 'professional facilitators' of one-off events (like an Open Space event) think fairly lightly about what will happen next and what kind of facilitation may be appropriate. It is not in their terms of reference, so why bother. Do I see this correctly? Food for thought, look forward to the food you offer ;-) Peter (from Milano) -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of kerry napuk Sent: 06 December 2005 17:27 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: OST second time around Koos I had a similar experience, but the second event lacked the same energy because so little was done after the first one. As a result, the forces of inertia overcame the band of people who wanted to continue the process. However, the sponsor still talks about the events as something very special even though they were held in 1999! I feel it has a lot to do with prevailing culture and whether or not there is a sponsor who is the process champion. Accordingly, we have done a series of events with various sponsors who like the process and want to do more, e.g. 12 events for the Scottish Department of Education. Cheers Kerry Edinburgh www.openfutures.com * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
