OST story: there must be better ways to make a living!

[Artur F. Silva]

At 01:24 17-01-2001 -0800, Chris Corrigan wrote:
>Colleagues:
>
>I have stared into the abyss and come away with a new appreciation of
>goat farming as an occupation.
>
>What a day I had.

Chris:

Thank you very much for the story you sent. It is easy to share a
story of complete success. But to share a story that the teller thinks
has NOT been a complete success needs a lot of courage. But
it is from the stories that were not complete successes that we all
can learn the most.

When I was reading your story, an old story from the field of Information
Systems Project Management came to my mind. This field has
developed principally after F. Brooks, published a book
called "The Mythical Man.Month", that could also be called "How I
failed magnificently a 2-year 100-people Software Project". All
the further discussion in the field was how to correct the problems
he pointed out.

The Project he "failed" was the development of an IBM product
called OS/360 that took twice the time and twice the people
that were planned. I imagine that you never heard about OS/360,
but if I tell you that the product was later designated MVS
and is the most solid and the most sold of IBM Operating
Systems for large computers, you can have an idea. So: from the
"bad project" of Brooks, a splendid product was developed.

So, maybe your action was not so bad as you described it
immediately after...

>But let me back up....
>(...)
>Today I opened the space for 68 people who are at the heart of the
>matter in British Columbia. (...)
>The diversity in the group was very much compounded by politics.
>(...) Needless to say the two groups rarely talk and hardly
>ever appear in the same meetings together.
>
>The second problem was all my fault, and it had to do with a bad
>opening.  Every so often we flub them, get tongue tied, forget
>something, say things in the wrong order, whatever.  It wasn't the worst
>opening I have ever done, but it was probably the worst situation not to
>be perfect in.  Usually people get the hang of the process anyway.

Unless you tell us that you specifically forgot to tell them that the
convenors of a session must sign the papers, it is not clear for me
if the facts you described were your fault.

It is normally said that OS is good to bypass (or to clarify) conflicts.
But in conflicts that come from political reasons, working in the minds
of people for decades or centuries, especially when a war was involved,
that is not so easy. In some cases conflicts will be addressed but need
more time than the duration of an OST to be solved.

[It is not yet the time to tell all of you about the difficulties I am
finding to do the OS session I have preannounce for African people in
Portugal, nor how I am trying to bypass the problem. Only to say
that political or military problems made impossible to joint people
of only one the Portuguese speaking African countries - the some
type of problem you encountered would occur].

My conclusion is that in some situations, where people don't even
speak to each other, OST can help raising the problems and beginning
clarifying them but the time allowed is not enough to "solve" the
problems.

[I began this mail yesterday but only completed it today. In the meanwhile
another mail from you seams to give me some reason. Maybe, the process
shall be used some more times until concrete results appear...]

I have not the same experience in OST as you or some others, but I
have different consulting experiences. From the point were I stand
it seams to me that in the conditions you described you did pretty well.

And thank you again for sharing the experience.

Best wishes

Artur

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