Yesterday I facilitated an Open Space for the Bricking It conference, held at Channel 4 in London. With my friends at Policy Unplugged, I've developed a stripped down version of the Open Space format to work in 3 hours.
Feedback has been very good and I really enjoyed myself.
One fun thing we did was asked all participants to fill in a form saying what, as a child, they wanted to be when they grew up, and what careers advice they'd give a youngster today. We papered a wall with all the answers...
and it gave a perspective on the fabulous variety of minds present in the room. I looked at this and thought, why would you take all this brainpower and constrain it in a conventional top-down format? Yay for Open Space.
Here are David Wilcox's pictures of the event.
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Comments (5)
I'd be really interested to hear what your stripped down versin of OS looks like - what's in - what's out from a trad OS event?
Cheers
Viv
September 20, 2006 12:12 Permalink for comment
Hi Viv: I don't cover the four principles, but I do talk about butterflies, bummblees and the law of two feet. I skip the "sign up" stage of the marketplace, I find we do fine without it. The closing is usually very short - this time I just did a round of one-word feedback. The core idea of participants setting the agenda and moving to where they want remains central.
September 20, 2006 14:18 Permalink for comment
Hi Johnnie,
In my day job, I'm operating in a fairly traditional, conservative, big-engineering software house, where brainstorming with a few prioritization techniques is about as sophisticated as group problem solving gets.
I've been proposing the OS idea gently for a while, using the "change is as good as a rest" argument so far. I was going to ask your advice on a good source link for a higher exec level manager who might ask "So how does OS work then ?"
Given the starting point I'd be nervous at running a first such session without some skilled facilitation support. Know anyone who could help in the Alabama area ?
September 21, 2006 03:21 Permalink for comment
Thanks Johnnie - that's pretty much what I do also when I pare it down to its basics: circle, Law of Two feet, agenda and get to work!
Cheers
Viv
September 21, 2006 07:31 Permalink for comment
Ian: Thanks for your questions. Here is a good intro to Open Space which I have found has helped clients in the past.. it's fairly short and sweet.
One starting point is to invite your key manager along to an Open Space being run elsewhere; or to introduce an Open Space in a smaller way for a less charged event, maybe something you create yourself.
To find a facilitator in your own area, I suggest joining this OpenSpace listserve and asking there. If that doesn't work, get back to me and I will try to get someone to help you!
October 2, 2006 16:07 Permalink for comment