Open Space

Open Space was developed by Harrison Owen as a way of organizing a meeting where the agenda cannot be decided in advance, or because the target is moving too quickly, the wishes of the particpants are not known, or admin costs need to be minimized.

Those who have experienced good open spaces (the skills of the consultant are critical and usually not carried out very well) find normal style panel and speeches meetings much less productive. Trying to get a committee to arrange a calendar of session to meet a complex agenda is tedious and has to be done way in advance of the meeting. The passivity of sitting in such sessions is less than thrilling. And speakers rarely know what the audience response was.

The Open Space idea is to get the people together on the opening day, sit them in a circle large enough to fit everryone (Open Space works best with about 50 up) and get people to say what they want to follow up on, given the prupose of the conference. Ideas are announced to the group by the person who sutopic and posted on a wall, along with a time and space slot.Then everyone goes and signs up. I've done these and participated in half day to four day sessions. Two is ideal, but four days if over a few hundred.

I've done a number of these with Harrison over the years. His book (at Amazon) is still the best guide. The largest was with 500 in Denver with a nationwide gathering across federal agencies for implementing the "Intermodal Transportation Act." We had four breakout sessions per day and results entered into an online computer conference. During the closing plenary session the whole was taken to kinkos and people were handed bound copies of the proceedigs as they left the room. Great to take home to the boss to show what happened. the conference remained online for folowup discussions.

Harrison has set very high stnadards as to how to do an Open Space. These often are violated - or not even known to the lead consultant - and the result is a less satisfactory expeience. The details of telling the group why they are there and what they need to do is often poorly done. You can't keep the group energy held if you have to stop and look at notes. Harrison usually takes the day before leading an Open Space and, on site if possible, rehearses out loud in real time the way he will speak to the participants, keeping in mind first one of the dominat personalities he knows will be there, and then repeating the whole presentation with another. This way he surfaces his intuition about how the presentation will be perceived. I know of very few Open Space leaders who take the time, or even know about it, to do this. Keeping the energy building and the purpose clear takes a leader with empathy and vision.

I often find that an Open Space is limited by the failure of the participants to grasp the radical intent of the organizers. Sometimes, carefully done, a panel or speech at the opening hnelps let the participants in on the fact that real change is legitimate for discussion.

I often use a scenario exercise (see Scenario building )lasting half a day before the Open Space. The purpose of the Open Space is then to discuss the "Issues and Opportunities" raised by the scenarios.

It is also important to have an agreement with senior management that there will be an architecture in place to follow up on the Open Space. If the purpose is to change an organization, the way the issues will be dealt with and by whom need to be agreed upon and told to the group at the begining of the meeting.

An interesting reporter's view of an Open Space I led in Telluride, Colorado, is at Telluride