Dear friends in Open Space I write to share about an exciting project and to ask to have feedback/ideas/experiences assisting me to refine/decide on the design I am working on.
The project is in a neighbouring town of about 35 000 inhabitants. They are inviting everyone living there to explore ways to contribute to enhance the learning amongst children/youth complementing/supporting what is happening in the school. The top politician in the town, responsible for education/schools is my sponsor. During the spring I had a couple of meetings with the top politicians and managers for the school system. Then we widened the circles and had some meetings with other interest parties , to invite more engagement for this idea. We have a plan that includes follow up, to support what is emerging, decide on next steps and make sure there is report back to what is happening and not. A couple of days ago we had our final planning meeting getting the theme etc. Still working on wording but something like For the future of our children. How do we create conditions for enhanced learning for pupils in our community? Of practical reasons evenings are considered the best options. Parents, pupils, teachers, business people, public workers etc etc are all busy daytime and weekends are not considered a good option. Everyone will be invited but its hard to say how many will come to each meeting. I guess between 10-200 :) Now the plan is to have three 3-hour meetings in three different parts of the small community. I have suggested a fourth meeting where all are invited for convergence/action planning. There are of course several challenges. I am not even sure I will suggest we use OST even though Id love to. I think a 3-hour meeting is the bare minimum for the simplest form of an OST meeting. On the other hand I see possibilities for this to be looked at like an OST meeting consisting of three occasions á 3 hours + convergence in a fourth meeting for another 3 hours That looks better, ey? There are some opportunities with this: 1. More time for the divergent process before converging. 2. People can choose to join several meetings, deepening their thinking 3. People can get access to more ideas/material from the 3 meetings. 4. There can be continued conversations online in between meetings and approaching meeting nbr 4. 5. There will be opportunities for people to create joint projects over boundaries in the community (meeting nbr 4 and online) There are several challenges with this too. 1. There will be different people in all of the meetings a. There needs to be a proper opening each time 2. 3 hours is very short. My plan: Opening/agenda 45 mts. Session 1 (45 mts). Session 2 (45 mts). Individual reflection/personal commitment (15 mts). Closing 30 mts. a. For the actionplanning meeting (meeting nbr 4) I will probably use re-opening, after a brief opening and reading reports/reflecting. A couple of action planning sessions, 1 minute reportback/group and then closing. 3. How to bind everything together to one whole So far I lean towards this plan but I would love to hear to your ideas, thoughts, experiences and/or suggestions! All the best Thomas Herrmann Open Space Consulting AB <http://www.openspaceconsulting.com/> www.openspaceconsulting.com You reach us via phone: +46 (0)709 98 97 81 or email: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] Open Space Consulting is a small company with BIG ambitions to assist leaders and organizations as well as local communities to tap into their full power to achieve their dreams. We bring practical tools and knowhow to empower you to find your way forward. More info LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasherrmannopenspaceconsult Facebook Company page: <https://www.facebook.com/OpenSpaceConsulting> https://www.facebook.com/OpenSpaceConsulting
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