Harold -- Welcome! Invitation: Short, sweet, and open. For a theme -- maybe something like "Issues and Opportunities for Building Our Business." Presuming they (your engineers) care about the business, that should get them started.
Don't try and explain Open Space. Folks wouldn't believe you anyhow. But you can make some definite promises. 1)Every issue they care about will be on the agenda. 2)Every issue will be discussed. 3) All will be reported. Those are "keepable" promises. No need to prepare anybody -- and in fact it will be counterproductive. Suggesting issues in advance may make people think that they SHOULD talk about those issues, when what they need to do is to talk about issues they care about. If this is your first Open Space I suggest that you do nothing but facilitate. Admittedly there is not much to do, but there is a lot to learn, and if you are busy posting/hosting issues you could miss a big bunch. And by the way -- Everything I have said (and a whole lot more) is "in the book." (Open Space Technology: A User's Guide -- Berrett-Koehler). You will probably find it helpful to get a copy (Amazon will do it) Have fun! Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20854 Phone 301-365-2093 Skype hhowen Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website www.ho-image.com OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Harold Shinsato Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 11:26 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Advice for an OS for learning & sharing for software developers Dear Open Spacetronauts, This is my first post to the list after an excellent training in San Francisco in OS Facilitation from Lisa Heft. With a one day OS coming up that I'll be facilitating in February, I'm a little daunted by the process of building the invitation and the theme and I have a few questions of how to manage things during the event. Some background, we used to be an independent engineering organization of about 50 software developers, QA, documentation, and managers in several locations in the U.S. and Europe. We used to hold a conventionally organized "Summit" with 2 tracks of presentations intended to share information about the industry and our own work. We would submit suggestions and management would choose the presentations. A few of the sessions would be interactive, but most were powerpoint talking heads. Last July our 150 person company was acquired by a 5000+ person company, which is being acquired by SAP, (40,000+). Even though we've been "assimilated", we're still fairly intact as an engineering organization. I've been given the ok to hold one of the three days of the Engineering Summit as Open Space. It's a great chance to open up great conversations about the strains and opportunities around the integration with a larger company. My questions for anyone who has done anything similar: How do I build an invitation and a theme to best engage the participants? Engineers are often fairly reserved. How can we best prepare them and get them engaged to suggest conversation topics when the actual Open Space happens? How can I get them thinking outside the box of a PowerPoint lecture? Is it possible I'll need to suggest some topics to get them started? Is it ok to talk about possible topics in the invitation without overtly pushing and driving the agenda? Do I have to hold back from suggesting topics during the agenda building session itself, even if I'm not in management. Thanks so much for any help. Happy 2008! Harold * * ========================================================== [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
