Half day OST with 600 municipal school managers

[Thomas Herrmann]

Dear friends
Today I had it confirmed. Wow!
Every second year there is a big gathering here in Sweden where municipal
school managers and politicians from all over the country meet to learn,
exchange experiences and for networking - kind of. So far it has been quite
traditional meetings - lectures, panels, some workshops etc. In the
evaluation from last years event there was an interest for more interactive
meetings and "Open Space" was mentioned.

So far I haven´t fully agreed that we´ll use OST but I sure would like to
give them an experience of the power of OST. I do know there is a risk
involved as we can only have 3,5 hours for this! I am very tempted and think
we will use OST, the option I have presented is Worldcafé which I have used
with almost as large groups as this one in even less time, a few times. But
I love OST, so I´ll see if we can find a good way...

I usually explain that halfday-OST, from my point of view, can be used to
create space for a creative exchange of experiences - no more. If there is a
very well defined issue some more concrete results could be possible, but
it´s difficult with a diverse group of this size.

The purpose of the big meeting as it seems today is to find ways how the
school managers can support the strategic (political) desicionmaking
regarding the development of the schoolsystem in their different
municipalities (unfortunately the politicians will have meetings in their
respective parties that half day, so they won´t take part).

I am already thinking of ways to do follow up (which we will plan in the
pre-meeting) and thought there might be some ideas and/or experiences out
there? I already mentioned that we could invite local groups to meet to
discuss further about the local issues. I also mentioned possibilities of
further physical meetings and/or OpenSpace-Online(R) as ways to follow up on
broader issues.

I can´t see possibilities right now to spend time to prioritize on the
issues during the short OST-meeting but thought maybe there could be a way
to gather votes either before people leave (the have lunch+another couple of
hours speeches after OST) or ask them to send their votes via email. This
depends of course on what focus we choose, but could be valuable
information.

So, next step is a 4 hour Whole person process facilitated preparation
meeting this coming January. I will let you know what happens then. Any
experiences and/or ideas are welcome meanwhile.
Kind regards

Thomas Herrmann         Phone +46 (0)709-98 97 81
Open Space Consulting   Fax   +46 (0)300-713 89
Pensévägen 4
434 46 Kungsbacka, Sweden
Email: thomas at openspaceconsulting.com
www.openspaceconsulting.com

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