5 Simultaneous Open Spaces

Judi Richardson judir at accesswave.ca
Sun Mar 7 12:44:29 PST 2004


Hi Larry -- and thank you for sharing.  I'm curious -- was there
butterflying and bumbleeing between the 5 meetings?  It will also be
interesting to see what synchronicity there was between the 5 groups by just
having them in the same room.

Sounds terrific, Larry and others!

Judi

__________________________________________________________
Judith Richardson, MA
Coaching & Consulting
Optimizing Performance, Potential and Profitability
www.ponoconsultants.com
www.emergentfeminine.com


Nova Scotia, Canada
Phone: (902) 434-6695 Facsimile: (902) 435-1085 E-mail: judir at accesswave.ca



-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]On Behalf Of Larry
Peterson
Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2004 12:53 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: 5 Simultaneous Open Spaces


Yesterday, March 6, a major non-profit housing provider in Toronto held
a one day session with 5 simultaneous OSTs in one large room.  (May be a
record, I don't know.)  The groups were 150, 85, 85, 45 and 45
participants in size.  There were 5 themes, 5 sets of  "sponsors",  5
circles and breakout areas,  5 OST facilitators, 5 convergence
processes.  Judy Gast and I were the leads for Starfield consulting who
planned the "content" part and worked with their logistics teams under
the oversight of a broader Planning Committee.  We all did the planning
in about 6 weeks.

I won't tell the whole story here as it will take a while to digest but
here are a few points that might interest you.  The March 6 event was a
follow-up OST after a previous event for 360 tenants and staff last
October.  That was one event, one circle and one convergence in 1.5
days.  We did that convergence by voting and then people met in their
local units.  These were Tenant representatives elected to each of 27
new clusters of housing complexes.  (There are 139,000 tenants in all.)
They were staff involved in managing and supporting the new local
housing clusters. They are moving toward more local management of the
housing clusters with active elected tenant councils and managers
accountable for the plan for each cluster.

The October meeting produced six clear do-its for priority attention by
the organization.  Substantial progress has been made on all six.  It
also identified 5 key areas for further conversation: Safety,
Maintenance, Tenant & Staff Relations, Human Rights & Equity and Youth
Initiatives.  There were top voted topics in those categories but the
"next steps" were not as clear as needed.

So, after some planning struggles, the committee decided to engage us
again to help them have the next steps discussions - with about 6 weeks
to plan.

So, we prepared the overall approach with the Planning Committee, and
then worked to develop 5 sets of background framing, givens, parameters
for action with the staff and tenant leads for each group.  That also
meant working with their logistics committees for setting up the
previously booked room for 5 events in a previously determined one day
short time frame 10-3:30.

Starfied found 3 other facilitators plus Judy and I - Sharon King (who
is Starfield), Meg Salter and Becky Peterson (who lives with me).  We
got them up to speed on the background and into meetings with the leads
for their theme group.

Even with some sound problems - each circle had its own sound system in
one huge room - I believe it went very well.  Each of the 5 OST's had
great discussions on their theme, came up with some good ideas for going
further, set some priorities for attention and had volunteers ready lead
some ongoing initiatives.  But, it was the conversations that were
exiting with tenant and staff working together to lead and record.  It
was fun, hard work and the energy at the end was remarkable when we all
a came together for a quick thank you from the CEO  (who was there for
the whole thing).

Someday, the whole story will be put together - with video, digital
pictures, etc. - but I wanted to let you know that its possible to have
5 at one time in the same room.

Larry

Larry Peterson
Associates in Transformation
Toronto, ON, Canada
416.653.4829

larry at spiritedorg.com
www.spiritedorg.com

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