OS in Arabia

[owen]

At 09:40 AM 9/21/99 +0200, you wrote:
OS in Arabia

>I wanted to share a few experiences (I'll be writing more detailed articles
>for the network, so this is just the preliminary information)

>2. As an OS facilitator, take care during the marketplace that the whole
>thing is not monopolized by individuals. I had to intervene, else all focus
>groups of the first round would have been merged.
*********************************************************
I find a simple suggestion (rule?) can help here. It is what I call Conveners
Rule. I bring it up when I talk about "Combinations and Conflicts" just before
the people go to the wall for sign-up. Simply said, it goes something like
this..." You are at liberty to combine any session with any other session if it
seems to make sense. However, I strongly suggest that you only combine sessions
when there is no other alternative. It is much better to have 5 people deeply
engaged than 25 people fighting each other. And in any event the conveners
rule. So if combination is in the wind BOTH conveners have to agree. If they
don't -- Separate Sessions."

There is a learning curve here, and the law of two feet is the corrective.
Sometimes you can get very large groups. In advance you cannot tell whether
such a group will be effective or not. I have seen groups of 75 (which resulted
from the combination of multiple groups) be very effective. So I never
intervene. No matter if I think 75 is "too big" -- if it works for the folks...
And if it doesn't -- there is a learning opportunity here. If the group is too
large to be functional, I find it best to let the people figure it out on their
own, learn to use their two feet and self-organize something that does work.
Perhaps it is just me, but I never get it right when I make specific
suggestions. But the people always do, and in the process, they learn a great
deal.
*******************************************

>3. The time between calling participants to step into the circle and the
>begin of the first focus groups is crucial and should be as short as
>possible to avoid lenghty discussions. Better risk to run into first
>sessions time (what I did  in an other OS I had in Germany. Obviously this
>time period depends on the number of participants (I had another OS, were
>the time was much too short, and I had to re-write the post-its with the
>time of the sessions). Any other experiences, rule-of-the-thumb, how to
>approach this?
*********************************
I agree it is usually best that one move quickly to action. But more important
is that the group take responsibility for itself, even if that is a little
painful for all concerned (especially the facilitator).  To give everybody the
best possible chance, I find it usually works to do everything in 1 and 1/2
hour sessions. Thus 1 and 1/2 hours for the start, the first session etc. This
seems to do it, and no matter -- Whenever it starts is the right time -- I
think.
********************************************
>4. Against all warnings, I did the OS at the 3rd day of a 5-days-workshop
>on Learning Organizations. It worked well, and we got a lot of material to
>work on during the last two days of the workshop.
********************************************
Actually the annual OT gatherings are always over 5 days with 3 full days in
Open Space. So it does work, and it is wonderful. For businesses and the like,
(where cost is really a concern) 2 and 1/2 days seems to be optimal. More
useful stuff will appear on a 3rd day --- but I have never been convinced that
if the time available had only been 2 days -- the same would not have happened.
In a very interesting way groups seem to pace themselves very accurately. If
they have 3 days, they will use it -- but somehow at a more lie surely pace. So
what about 1 day? Certainly works, but I find that folks are just getting
started, and given another day -- things will get much deeper. Like all the
rest of Open Space. Nothing hard and fast.  If it works -- do it. If it feels
good -- do it again.

Can't wait for the next installment! Good job.


Harrison


Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854   USA
301-469-9269 (phone)
301-983-9314 (fax)
email owen at tmn.com
Website http://www.tmn.com/~owen
Open Space Institute website
http://www.tmn.com/openspace
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/19990921/ae714176/attachment-0017.htm>