Open Space Technology: A User's Guide - Softcover

Owen, Harrison

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1576750248 ISBN 13: 9781576750247

Verlag: McGraw-Hill Education Ltd, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

Open Space Technology: A User's Guide is just what the name implies: a hands-on, detailed description of facilitating Open Space Technology (OST). Written by the originator of the method - an effective, economical, fast, and easily-repeatable strategy for organizing meetings of between 5 and 1,000 participants - this is the first book to document the rationale, procedures, and requirements of OST. OST enables self-organizing groups of all sizes to deal with hugely complex issues in a very short period of time. This practical, step-by-step user's guide details what needs to be done before, during, and after an Open Space event.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Owen has worked with a variety of organizations, including small West African villages, urban (American and African) community organizations, the Peace Corps, regional medical programs, the National Institutes of Health, and the Veterans Administration.

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Open Space Technology?

On 21 April 1992, a group of about 225 people gathered in Denver, Colorado, for a two-day meeting to develop cooperative arrangements for the effective expenditure of $1.5 billion designated for highway construction on tribal and public lands. Roughly one-third of these people were Native Americans, one-third were federal bureaucrats, and one-third were from state and local governments. On the face of it, the prospects for a peaceful, let alone productive, meeting seemed less than bright. The participants were all natural, if not historical, enemies. As a matter of fact, the results were rather surprising.

When the people arrived, it was clear that this was not business as usual. To begin with, there was no advance agenda. People knew only when the meeting would start, when it would end, and that somehow (as yet undefined) they would accomplish the task before them. Needless to say, there were more than a few skeptics, whose disbelief was not lessened by the physical appearance of the room in which they were to meet. What they found were two large concentric circles of chairs, with nothing in the middle and a blank space of wall behind.

Within one and one-half hours everything had changed; even the skeptics were hard at work dealing with the issues of personal concern to them. To reach that point, each person who cared to was invited to identify any issue related to the central task for which they had some real passion, write it down on a quarter sheet of newsprint, and post it on the wall. In doing so, they accepted responsibility for convening a session on their issue and making a written report of the results. When all the issues were posted, everybody went to the wall en masse and signed up for the sessions in which they cared to participate. And then it was off to work. That was it, and this was Open Space Technology (OST).

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In the course of the two-day meeting, that diverse group created, and totally self-managed, an agenda built around some fifty-two different task groups. The agenda itself was created in less than half an hour, and the various task groups produced about 150 pages of proceedings in thirty-six hours. Thanks to the wonders of modern computers coupled with overnight printing, copies of the final proceedings rolled hot off the press in time for the departure of all participants on the morning of the third day. During the concluding session, one of the Native Americans said that never before had he felt so listened to and so much a part of the discussions. The feeling was shared by all parties.

It is also noteworthy that the decision to hold the meeting was made in March of the same year. Thus, the whole idea went from conception to delivery in about six weeks. There was one facilitator for the total event.

Stated in bald terms, these claims for such a large meeting may sound extreme, if not outrageous. The conventional wisdom says, and everybody knows, that creating a meeting of such size, complexity, and potential for conflict takes months of preparation and an army of planners and facilitators. Furthermore, the notion that the proceedings could not only be completed but also delivered to the participants prior to departure is going a little too far. Unfortunately for the conventional wisdom, the event did take place exactly as described, and more than that, it was not the first such event. Over the past twenty years, thousands of gatherings have taken place with similar results. While the experience may not yet be commonplace, it is definitely not a fluke. It is repeatable. It is called Open Space Technology.

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How Open Space Technology came to be was not a matter of careful planning and thoughtful design. It began out of frustration, almost as a joke.


The Genesis of Open Space Technology

In 1983, I had occasion to organize an international conference for 250 participants. It took me a full year of labor. By the time I had finished with all the details, frustrations, and egos (mine and others’) that go with such an event, I resolved never to do such a thing again. This resolution was confirmed at the conclusion of the conference, when it was agreed by one and all (including myself) that although the total event had been outstanding, the truly useful part had been the coffee breaks. So much for one year’s effort to arrange papers, participants, and presenters. The only thing that everybody liked was the one thing I had nothing to do with: the coffee breaks. There had to be a message here.

My question was a simple one: Was it possible to combine the level of synergy and excitement present in a good coffee break with the substantive activity and results characteristic of a good meeting? And most of all, could the whole thing be done in less than a year?

The line of inquiry I chose to follow took some interesting turns, but essentially it started with the notion that if I could identify certain basic mechanisms of meetings, or human gatherings, it might be possible to build them into an approach that would be so simple it could not fail and so elemental it might possess the natural power of a good coffee break.

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With these thoughts in mind, I recalled an occasion in the late 1960s when I was working as a photojournalist in a small West African village by the name of Balamah, located in the interior of Liberia. One of the high points of my visit was participation in the rites of passage for the boys. As you might imagine, this was a major celebration. It occurred every seven years and was the moment when the village inducted its male youth as full-fledged citizens. No longer children, they were expected to assume adult roles and responsibilities. The actual celebration continued for four days with all sorts of rituals and other activities. So far as I could tell, there was nothing that looked or acted like a planning committee, either during the event or prior to its occurrence. Nevertheless, five hundred people managed themselves for four days in a highly organized, satisfactory, and I have to say, enjoyable fashion. How could that be?

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I do not claim to have the whole answer to the mystery of Balamah, but at least part of their secret lay in the fact that the village (like all West African villages) was laid out in a circle, with an open space in the middle. The chief’s house and the houses of some of the important elders bordered what, in an American or European town, would have been the village square. But here it was a circle, and I think that difference is important.

My experience tells me that the circle is the fundamental geometry of open human communication. A circle has no head or foot, no high or low, no sides to take; in a circle, people can simply be with each other–face to face. After all, we do not have a square of friends, and on a cold winter’s night it is nice to be part of the family circle.

Place people in rows (classroom or theater-style), where they all face the source of power and authority, and it is clear who will talk and who must listen. In squares and rectangles, there is separation that may be useful to keep combative parties apart, as in negotiation, but genuine, open, free communication tends to occur only at a minimum. Circles create communication.

The celebration in Balamah occurred as an ordered progression from the periphery of the town to the center of the circle, and back again. Dancers, drummers, horn players, religious and political leaders, all gathered in the outlying sections of the town and then swirled to the center in a kaleidoscope of color, rhythm, and song. The circle came alive with ceremony, speeches, and above all, dance. Intensity rose to a peak, and then peaked again, until at last it ebbed as villagers flowed outward to their homes. It was as...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: McGraw-Hill Education Ltd
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1997
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1576750248
• ISBN 13: 9781576750247
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 173
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar