Dear Tree,
Thanks for the energyzing answer. Yes, the most important purpose of this event is to mobilise participants.
On the OS, the action planning was much less intensive than the problem discussion part. Participants started to think, but they didn't have enough strong confidence to put their ideas on paper.
So one of our purpose is to see what happened and after to see what should we do more.
I like the idea using world coffee...
I will come back to you how did it go:)
Have a nice week
Bea
From: Tree Fitzpatrick <[email protected]>
Reply-To: OSLIST <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Follow up for an OS
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 11:39:05 -0800
Hi Bea,
It does not really matter, in my view, whether or not the initial OS event for which you are now planning a followup, three-hour OS, had any action planning. What matters is what is present NOW, for you and your client organization.
I gather from your question what you and the client (I realize you might be a member of the client organization but I use the word client distinguished from you because I assume that you seek to serve the needs of the client org/system and not just your individual inclinations), that a perception has arisen that a follow up might be useful and that, maybe (it is up to you and the client to decide) action planning would be a good way to use the three-hour, follow-up OS.
What matters is NOW. It doesn't matter what happened before. What matters what happens in the three-hour NOW. And in this NOW, Bea, you and the client are fully free to make this three-hour, follow-up anything you choose. I think your question is, in its essence, how can we get a lot out of this three-hour, follow-up.
Here is how: As the lead open space facilitator for the three-hour, follow-up, Bea, you can be holding inside yourself a clear intention that this brief followup will be plenty of time to get something real accomplished. Truly, as the open space facilitator/holder, your clear, inner work around the intention for the brief followup is very important. It is also important that your clients/colleagues that want this followup meeting hold a similar intention. I also invite you and your client/colleagues to be holding a clear intention that the results you hope to see, will, in fact, take place at the mini-followup. Do some planning work: get clear within yourselves and as a collective team about what you hope to accomplish. Craft an invitation to the three-hour follow-up that sets this intention clearly for everyone that is invited to join the followup. Open the space that day with your intentions clearly communicated.
And, and this might just be me, talk a little bit about 'open space time'. Lightly address and acknowledge that while there might not be as much time as anyone would like, time is relative and open space time has an amazing capacity to hold whatever needs to be held.
For me, the inner work of the planners around intention and invitation, along with a skillful opening of the space always opens enough space.
I recently co-convened the closing day of a four day, evolutionary salon that had been held mostly in open space. We began our five days together with a World Cafe, then we shared three days in open space and then we had half a day on the fifth day. Whew! The salon planners had left the design of this last day open. This was a safe choice because Peggy Holman (along with many other open space facilitators, as it happened) was holding space at the event so we were in very good hands. But that last day was designed by the people who checked inside themselves on the final evening and were asked to discern for themselves if they were the ones to do the following day. With much reluctance, I found myself called to design and lead the final day. It had been a rich, complex gathering. The collective field we had co-created was powerfully alive. It did not seem possible that we could, in the three hours and a half hours available to us, open the day, have something happpen, and still have a closing circle. Well, of course, we had to have all those elements: open the day, have something happen around action planning, close both the day and the five-day gathering. How could we do it with so little time? Well, we did it in open space time. We made a few abortive attempts to plan around midnight, even though we were all so tired. A big thing on our minds was time: there was so much that needed to be accomplished. Action planning, closing the collective space, handling administrative details. Someone, maybe Peggy, reminded us that we would be doing it in open space time. . . . I felt such relief. I realized that if I trusted that three and one half hours was enough time, then it would be enough time. To make a long story short, there was plenty of time. We got everything accomplished that we needed to accomplish and, I am pretty sure most present would agree, the timing was one of the best parts. We actually created an outline of the time: five minutes for this, ten minutes for that . . . and to our great amazement, everything got done in almost exactly the timeframe we set. The whole circle of eighty people, of course, co-created that day, not just the four people who led the day, but there was enough time for everything. . . AND it was a great day. For full disclosure, I want to also tell you that Ashley Cooper, who is active on this list, was another one of the leaders of this short-but-full day. There were four of us and we were awesome but so was everyone else.
There will be all the time you need in your three-hour, follow-up, Bea, if you yourself are clear that there is enough time.
--
Warmly,
Tree Fitzpatrick
Hearthkeeper for Evolutionary Salons
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