OS & Evidence based practice

[Romy Shovelton]

Hi Jon

good to hear of this potential project..

I am certainly convinced that Open Space would be a great way to
surface 'the difference that makes the difference'... and would love to
support you in your proposal....

unfortunately, while I've been working with OS since 1992 and running
training with Harrison since the 1990s.... I am not personally aware of
a project that has been directly analagous to your proposal.

Last year I did a 650 person event for Patricia Hewitt of DTI , to
surface stories of what's working well with the range of change
initiatives that they have been involved in over the past few years
(including work that I did with them over a couple of years).....  In
this particular case we didn't use Open Space - mainly because the
troops also needed to hear from their leaders in this case, so the time
was really too short to make sense of an Open Space.  Also the event
had partly been designed before they called me and said "help !".....
this is actually more than we can cope with internally. Certainly the
work could have effectively been done in OS.

I expect your 24 hours has well run out by now... so I'll just wish you
well.

meanwhile.... so 'shout' if you would like someone to share ideas with
(apologies for not replying before - returned from India late yesterday
evening)

all the best Jon

Romy

On 6 Nov 2004, at 06:43, Jon Harvey wrote:

>
> 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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