OS & Evidence based practice

[Harrison Owen]

I can't think of any examples of applications just as you describe -- but I
would argue that every OS is in fact such research. A number of years ago I
did an Open Space for the Executive MBA program at City University (London).
This was for all current students, faculty and guests. I don't remember the
theme exactly, but it was something like "What are we going to do with the
rest of our lives now that we have an MBA" Obviously a topic worthy of
serious research. One of the guests was the gentleman who created Action
Research (Reg ?). He was well along in years at that point and I found
myself sitting next to him on the sidelines (Butterflying). He was smiling
and silent -- just nodding his head as he watched the goings-on. After a bit
we struck up a conversation -- and his first comment was something like,
"This is wonderful -- it is everything that I had hoped Action Research
would be."

ho

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20845
Phone 301-365-2093

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Jon Harvey
Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 7:44 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: OS & Evidence based practice

Hallo

I work in the field of public services - and I have a potential client who
wants help to discover what works in the field of community safety.
Specifically they coordinate a number of projects thoughout a large city
here in the UK - and they have conducted some recent evaluations of 4 of
their major projects. However - the evaluations did not discover what were
the critical success factors to the 4 projects - in other words - why ~did~
they work? They need this info - so that they can apply the learning to
future projects.

So they are looking for a meta evaluation of the 4 projects - to try and
identify what are the 'differences that make the difference' between success
and failure in this complex field of social interventions to increase
community safety.

Easy huh!

I am keen to use OS to work with the client all the stakeholders to help
them achieve this. Why? Why OS? Well (obviously) I value and like the
process hugely. Secondly - I believe they need an innovative process (beyond
the standard research evaluation that they have already used) to dig down
deeper (and deeper) to discover the essence of the evidence based practice.

So... my enquiry is this - has anyone out there had any experience of using
OS in such a way - I would be most interested to hear your experiences -
whatever you can share.

Time is of the essence - I have to finish writing the proposal in about 24
hours time - so any info I need before then. (By the way - has OS ever been
used to help procurement professionals to have a slightly less anally
retentive view of the world?!!)

All thoughts most welcome. Many thanks

Jon Harvey
Oxford
UK

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