Thanks for the helpful (and provocative) comments on my query re convergence, especially Chris, Michael, Jack, Wendy, Christine, Peggy (apolgies if I've missed anyone). All helpful stuff. I'm signing off for a week while I go to my brother's wedding...in the Hunter Valley. This is a premier wine growing area.....the `wedding at Cana'!? You little bewdy. Michael Wood
________________________________ From: OSLIST on behalf of Peggy Holman Sent: Sat 11/04/2009 07:08 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: convergence query Since others have spoken to the question of control/engagement, I won't. Over the last year or two, I've been playing with approaches to convergence. I've noticed three situations with different centers of gravity: * The focus is on individual action People come from all over and/or the main need is to follow the energy of individual passion. Re-opening the space with a "what's next?" question always works well. An alternative: In our Journalism that Matters sessions, Stephen Silha introduced the idea of coaching circles. Clusters of 4-6 form in some self-organizing way. Each person who wants to, shares an idea and gets feedback. Someone takes notes for them. Everyone gets a chance to vet their ideas and learn from others. * The focus is on collective action People come primarily from one organization or there is an intuition that people from all over have something of substance to do together. Re-opening the space with a "what's our work together?" sort of question surfaces both projects with great support and the outliers that are principally individuals with the energy to pursue what they desire. Everyone gets to work following their passion. And they discover where there is substantial shared energy for next steps. * Collective meaning making and action Both working with complex ideas (like the "story field") and working the system of journalism over the last several years (see www.journalismthatmatters.org <http://www.journalismthatmatters.org/> ) has led me to a desire to find simple ways to surface useful collective understandings, to see what is ripe to name among a diverse group. So I've been experimenting with low-key ways of doing that. My bias is that to do so begins with individual passion and responsibility and seeks resonance at increasing scale. Here are two approaches I've played with that do that: One is a bit of a game, but it's quick (about 20 minutes) and does seem to produce useful results. It is something of a face to face version of some of the algorithms used for ranking online. I was introduced to it by a Playback Theatre person. We used it at the end of a one-day conference I keynoted last year and I've used it with journalists. The ideas that surface really do seem to have legs. It is called Thirty-five. It starts with each person writing something in response to a question seeking coherence (e.g., What do we now know about working in the new news ecology?). People then walk around swapping cards and periodically stopping with another person to read each other the cards they're holding and splitting 7 points between the cards. At the end of 5 rounds, the points are totaled (7x5 = 35 max points). Reading the 2-9 top scoring cards seems to surface what has meaning to many in the room. See http://www.thiagi.com/pfp/IE4H/march2008.html#Framegame for details. Another approach I've used before opening the space for convergence also begins with individual reflections. For example, with journalists, I've asked them to write a story in which they see themselves working in the "new news ecology". They take about 15 minutes of time by themselves. Then they share stories in groups of 3-5. Each group then generates one statement, with room for "wild cards" ensuring room for what individuals feel passionate about. Statements are read out loud and posted around the room. People literally take a stand for what has most resonance. It gives quite a visual hit of where the energy is. At the most recent Journalism that Matters, these are the statements that emerged: http://www.mediagiraffe.org/wiki/index.php/Newsecology-statements I am aware that these activities may seem quite directed. I find them a lighter touch than the World Cafe, which does a brilliant job of surfacing collective meaning. The more I work with complex systems and ideas, the more I believe it is useful to surface collective meaning. So I continue to seek simple ways to do that. If you have other means, I'm all ears. appreciatively, Peggy ______________________________ Peggy Holman The Open Circle Company 15347 SE 49th Place Bellevue, WA 98006 425-746-6274 www.opencirclecompany.com <http://www.opencirclecompany.com/> For the new edition of The Change Handbook, go to: www.bkconnection.com/ChangeHandbook "An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt, is to become the fire". -- Drew Dellinger On Apr 10, 2009, at 8:09 AM, Chris Corrigan wrote: Michael... One way to look at it is that there is a smell of control about the process, but when I read your note I immediately thought that the sponsor was actually opening him/herself up for more group ownership of the meaning of the event. IN other words, instead of the sponsor coming up with emergent themes, you are letting the group do that. IN my opinion,l this second level of conversation will probably create MORE ownership of the work, not less. So I don't see a downside unless you have a time limitation. You could have the groups talk for 30 mins and come up collectively with a scheme of the major emerging themes, and then have the group sort the proceedings into these themes and have the group break up again into action planning clusters around each theme, taking an hour or so to come up with higher level learning and next steps on the themes and the topics within them. That night be one way to go. Chris On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 6:46 AM, Michael M Pannwitz <[email protected]> wrote: Dear Michael Wood, why do I sense and smell control? Is it because it does not feel like an Open Space (real business issue, decision time of yesterday, providing time and space for passion and responsibility to unfold in an environment of selforganisation, etc.)? Is it that I as participant would want to have more of a say in what will happen rather than just passing on my ideas and then being put in a feedback-loop to see how my input was used to shape policy? Is it that I wonder why I am invíted to make an input and not to actually be involved in shaping policy? Is it that from my experience I know that convergence "old style" (voting, dots, Delphi, families of issues)is a low energy drag since it focuses on "themes" rather than "issues" or "projects" and does not allow the rich potential for action to unfold? Is it that I feel that neither themes nor actions need converging but that there simply needs to be action planning on stuff people feel passionate about? Sorry for not having an answer or thoughts on alternatives. Greetings from Berlin mmp Michael Wood wrote: I am doing an Open Space in a couple of weeks for about a hundred people in Health Care around the issues of workforce flexibility and structuring. The output will not so much be action plans as the raising of key themes and issues which need to be taken into account by policy makers within the Health Department. This has been communicated in the invitation and will be highlighted again in the Sponsor's introduction/welcome. We have also discussed feedback-loop communications after the event so that people can see how their input was used to shape policy. The sponsor believes (as do I) that it could be useful to invite the group into some preliminary `first cut' analysis of emerging themes as a 'convergence' activity. I am wondering how to do this is way which is somewhat more conversational than the "red dot" system. I quite like the World Cafe convergence question "what do you see as being patterns, themes and emerging questions?", and was thinking of a convergence process which would involve some individual reading time of group reports, then asking people to self organise into groups/circles of 4 people to discuss that question for half an hour or so, then pass the indian talking stick/microphone around to invite reflections from each group. Could this `mixing' of processes (OST and World Cafe) have any downsides I am not seeing? Any thoughts on this idea or alternative ways of converging where it's themes rather than action that need converging? Michael Wood * * ========================================================== [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 -- Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany ++49-30-772 8000 [email protected] www.boscop.org <http://www.boscop.org/> Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 462 resident Open Space Workers in 73 countries working in a total of 139 countries worldwide Have a look: www.openspaceworldmap.org <http://www.openspaceworldmap.org/> * * ========================================================== [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 -- CHRIS CORRIGAN Facilitation - Training - Process Design Open Space Technology Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com <http://www.chriscorrigan.com/> Principal, Harvest Moon Consultants, Ltd. http://www.harvestmoonconsultants.com <http://www.harvestmoonconsultants.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 * * ========================================================== [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
