Open space for time management

[John Moore]

Rob

I have an example of using OS in combination with Search technology.
This is in the construction industry in the UK. I will send you a case
study off list.

The methodology is simple. Before large projects get on site, we run a
one and half day workshop with a half day OS for action planning. A
building we treated this way last year has just been completed on time in
budget and without an end of contract claim. A reasonably significant
result in the construction industry. One of the key outcomes from the OS
was that directors from the construction company and from the client
organisation agreed to sort out variations as they arose rather than
leave them to be fought about at the end of the project. Significantly
they stood together and announced this strategic solution to operational
problems to the community at large.

Two days later I held a review meeting with the project team and the PM
announced that he had been invited to attend design team meetings as a
team member rather than attending when something was going wrong. In
twenty years he had not heard of this happening before. that's not to
say it hasn't, but indicates its rarity.

The OS session itself is usually 3 hours with two rounds. Often the
groups remain substantially the same in the two sessions. Enormous
energy and involvement following the power of the Search process.

I currently am exploring the same kind of process in a large corporation
in Melbourne. There is high level resistance to spending time and money
at the front end. Slowly (over two years) the resistance has begun to
soften. I may now have a lead into the organisation to offer one
workshop.

I think this would make a significant difference in projects of any size
- there seem to be two key problems. Firstly this may be hard to justify
(on cost grounds) for small projects. Secondly not all the system may be
identified at the initiation stage. We have also run these workshops
after projects get going. The response has invariably been "We should
have done this at the beginning". Nevertheless the results are beneficial.

Regards

John Moore

--
"The world is moving from experts solving problems for people towards
everybody, experts included, improving the whole system."

Marvin R Weisbord
Discovering Common Ground

Open Futures Pty Ltd
PO Box 123 Cockatoo  Victoria  3781  Australia
phone +61 3 5968 8457  facsimile  +61 3 5968 9925
mobile  0412 702 652

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