Large-scale Open Space

[Harrison Owen]

At 12:15 PM 3/14/00 -0700,  Martin Leith wrote:

>The main thing to consider is that you will need a lot of wall. A lot.
>However much you are thinking of, double it or treble it. The sign-up
>sheets need to have lots of space around them. And only one sheet high,
>if you understand what I mean. After the marketplace you can move the
>sheets closer together to free up the wall for session reports etc.

>You will probably need a few assistants to direct session convenors to
>the *right* bit of the wall. (Harrison screams loudly at this point!).
>Yes - you'll need to divide the wall up into a.m. and p.m. sessions to
>ease logistics.

>It's also worth having a room tsar during the marketplace, to make sure
>that people have big enough rooms, move chairs and so on.

>I usually put the approximate room capacity on the Post-its. This tends
>to eliminate a lot of unnecessary room 'allocation' problems. (Harrison
>screams again!).
***************************************************
Martin Leith -- Good to see you online! And no "screams" -- but maybe some
alternate thoughts and suggestions.

A large Open Space (500-1500) does present certain challenges, and I have done
not a few. My learning has been that it is actually easier to work witrh a
large group than a small one, and further, that the dynamics in both cases are
virtually identical -- strange as that may seem.

The point about "Lots of Wall" is very well taken. When the wall is too small,
things get a lot more chummy than may be comfortable. It always seems to work
out, but it works better with more space. My rule of thumb is 6 inches of wall
per participant (20 cm) per participant. For 800 people that is 400 feet of
Wall. 300' will actually do it, but more is better.

When it come to all the "stage management" I have never found it necessary and,
in some significant ways, counter productive. As for the Czar... It is true
that the addition of people and tasks that Martin suggest may have the
immediate impact of  apparently making things move more easily, but at a major
cost. Every time you do something for somebody you deny them the opportunity of
doing it for themselves. It is all about empowerment and taking personal
responsibility. Of course if everything were going to break down into a mass of
confusion and discord, then some form of additional assistance would be
essential. But I have never seen that happen. The folks always get it done, and
most important, they learn in the process what they can do.

In terms of some of the specifics -- "Room size on the Post-its" Nice idea, but
two problems. First, what starts out as a small group will often grow, and so
the size chosen turns out to be "wrong." There is an easy solution for this,
the group just takes personal responsibility, exercises the Law of Two Feet --
and moves to a more commodious environment. No sweat. But if you as facilitator
have taken responsibility for "space management" you are going to be very busy
and unhappily so. Self-management, and self-organization will win every time.
But it is important to choose a venue with lots of different sorts of spaces so
that groups can move My strategy is to keep the main room free, so that large
groups will have a place to go. They will figure it out.

Then there is "Order on the Wall" Virtually every Open Space I have done (small
or large) somebody always seems to suggest that it would be very nice if the
wall were a little more orderly, and especially nice if it were lined up by
time slots. I used to resist. Now I just let them go ahead. The result is
instructive. Just about the time they have gotten it all in order somebody
makes a change (adds a session, combines a session, drops a session --
inevitably without observing the Wall Management Protocol.) They put their
paper where they damn well please. Of course you can have somebody standing
there all day just to keep things under control...   The cruelest cut comes
when some participant loudly complans that "somebody has thrown out their
session."  Of course it hasn't been thrown out -- just tidied up. Reminds me of
some of my family members who's bedrooms look roughly like the aftermath of a
tornado -- to me. But God forbid that I should straighten it all up. I think
there is some wisdom in all that mess, and specifically a benefit to
participants. If sessions are neatly lined up by time slots, participants will
(typically) make their selections rather in the manner of a dance card... one
per. On the other hand, if everything is all over the place, the participants
will first look for what they care about and then figure out the time. And to
me that lines up the cart and the horse in the proper order. Go for what you
care about and the rest will take care of itself. Now truth to tell, I am not a
purist on all this. On a multi-day Open Space, it is useful to specify the
days. But beyond that -- anything goes -- very productively so.

For me the real issue is -- think of one more thing not to do. And if it turns
out that it all works very well by itself without assistance -- fantastic. And
in addition the people will learn just that much more about their own power and
possibility. Over the years, I have found that many (most?) of the sort of
"assisting" kinds of things that I have done were largely for my benefit, they
made me feel better. But they added nothing to the power and productivity of
the Open Space. Indeed some of them actually had the unintended consequent of
diminishing that power and productivity.

So, Martin -- no screams -- just some alternative thoughts and experiences.


Harrison



Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854
USA
phone 301-469-9269
fax 301-983-9314
website
www.mindspring.com/~owenhh
Open Space Institute websites
www.openspaceworld.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20000316/372ebcbd/attachment-0017.htm>