Givens

[Jim Clark]

Thanks to Birgitt for her clarification on "givens."

I have found for myself, that coming up with the "right" theme and givens to be
the  most challenging part of creating a successful program, and Birgitt's
reminder of some of the issues that might need to be brought up has helped me to
re-think how I am doing this.

I attended a training with Birgitt in January, and since have been happily
Opening Space, creating for myself, a practice that I can "own" and be confident
in.  We had hoped to bring Birgitt to Taiwan this year (after her trip to
Australlia) but realzied there wasn't a critical mass of people in Taiwan that
new what OS was to be interested in coming to training about OS.

So instead we came up with a "basic training" course based on my limited, but
happily growing experience.

When I was creating the slides I hid Birgitts training manual, and just came up
with "that which was inside of me."  (I didn't hide Harrison's book, as there is
no Chinese version, and I wanted to transfer some key points from that book to
our non-English reading participants.  We did sell the Harrison's book to the
English reading participants.)

I purposefully didn't follow Birgitt's training materials for two reasons:
1.  It is our intention to invite Birgitt or some other more experienced trainer
to Taiwan next year to run an "advanced" OS Training, and I didn't want it to be
the same.
2.  I felt like I should share that which has meaning and purpose to me.

One thing I have wanted share with the OSlist (and this has sparked the need to
get this out to the group) is the following list we as a group came up with in
the training of questions/thoughts around finding the theme and/or givens for a
group.  (thanks to Larry Philbrook for being such a wonderful documenter!).

Worksheet on the givens (looking for the 7 or 8 at the most.  None is also fine
sometimes):
1)   Is there anything that is non-negotiable (authority etc)?
2)   What is off limits?
3)   What is a waste of their time right now?
4)   What recent decisions will affect the work of the group?
5)   What is coming up that will make a difference/ people need to know?
6)   What are parameters that need to stated?
7)   Any major events in the past 6 months or next six months?
8)   What is now being done in this arena in the company?
9)   What is your greatest anxiety that you would like to see addressed?
10)  Is there information on competitors or the market that would be helpful?
11)  Who is going to be invited? Who needs to be invited?  What do they need to
understand at the start?
12)  What is the greatest anxiety that you do not want to see addressed?
13)  What are the skeletons in the closet? What has been tried that failed?
14)  If you are working with one department how can you protect yourself from
the rest of the company? Do you need to guard yourself?
15)  Anything else I should know?
16)  Why did you call me?

Too many givens indicates a need to:
(a)  refine the question/theme so that it is focused enough to operate with
fewer givens
(b)  refine the givens or
(c)  use another method than open space.


I would love to hear from others how you come up with Theme and Givens.  Like I
said, this is the "tough part" for me right now, and would enjoy learning from
others.

With respect from Afar,

Jimbo

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