To grid or not to grid...
For me, it depends. Two circumstances lead me to offer more order.
Size. As the size of the group increases, there are more sessions to
track. With a larger group, I post times along the top of the agenda
wall. Like Lisa, I often use different colors for different times.
When I did the OS for 2,100 street kids in Bogota, we set up a grid;
each time had its own wall and we put the room numbers across the rows:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78084501@N00/79452637/in/set-1700469/
It just seemed the best way to support the crowd in finding sessions
of interest.
Culture. The other circumstance in which I've used a grid is when the
culture of the group seems to call for it. As Kaliya noted, engineers
seem more productive with a grid. I think it is for them, one less
thing.
Speaking of culture, one of the most telling images for me is the OS
of 2108 that Harrison and Michael did in Wurtzberg and the 2,100
street kids. As people waited to announce their sessions in Germany,
they were in a neat line. The street kids looked like a mob around
Andres, who held the mic. In both cases, it was orderly but the image
was sure different!
Wurzberg: http://www.transformation.at//?art_id=46
(pages 39-41)
Colombia:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78084501@N00/79454421/in/set-1700469/
Peggy
______________________________
Peggy Holman
The Open Circle Company
15347 SE 49th Place
Bellevue, WA 98006
425-746-6274
www.opencirclecompany.com
www.journalismthatmatters.org
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 Aug 7, 2009, at 6:00 AM, Harrison Owen wrote:
Artur – we will be looking forward to your return! And an odd
thought passed through my muddled mind. It occurred to me, I think
because you mentioned being an engineer that it might somehow appear
that “getting organized” and “being organized” are somehow anathema
to Open Space. It might even seem that I have implied as much – if
so that would be a massive mistake on my part. The issue is not
“organization” – but who does it and when does it happen? The truth
of the matter is that every Open Space is highly organized, usually
more so than any facilitator or planning committee could ever imagine.
Consider 2108 German psychiatrists X 236 concurrent sessions in an 8
hour period. That would take a planning committee years! And they
would never get it right -- things would always be late, and great
frustration would be a predictable outcome. In the instance, the
people did it all themselves in something less than an hour and it
all worked out perfectly including written reports for all or most
of the sessions. Now Mr Engineer, Can you beat that? Just kidding J
For me the real issue is efficiency and effectiveness – which are
presumably positive values that all engineers will ascribe to. In
that case the only question is how do you get there fastest and
bestest? The curious answer would seem to be Do Less!
Harrison
Harrison Owen
189 Beaucaire Ave
Camden, ME 04843
207-763-3261 (Summer)
301-365-2093 (Winter)
Website www.openspaceworld.com
Personal Website www.ho-image.com
OSLIST To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options
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From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of
Artur Silva
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 6:57 AM
To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
Subject: Re: Why is a grid sometimes useful?
Being out of my office with bad internet contact and short of time,
I only red some of this rich exchange.
I must say, like Bernd, that, probably because of my education as an
engineer, I never thought about doing it without a grid. And living
in a Chatolic country, even with a grid, most managers think that
OST is too much for them...
But then some coments from Harrison and Lisa make me think...
I will continue to think, and after the 18th, with better conexion,
I will coment something.
But don´t ask me what ;-)
Regards from the countryside somewhere in the north of Portugal
Artur
-----------
--- On Thu, 8/6/09, Harrison Owen <hho...@verizon.net> wrote:
From: Harrison Owen <hho...@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Why is a grid sometimes useful?
To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
Date: Thursday, August 6, 2009, 5:17 AM
Lesley, I think you got it! (“It is my sense of things that the more
we order….the more we take away from the process……..however this can
be very uncomfortable for us(facilitator”). It is all about
organizing a self organizing system. Not only is that an oxymoron,
but also of questionable intelligence – regardless of the alleged
increase of comfort.
Harrison
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