OS and prioritizing of topics

[Harrison Owen]

Ah Priorities! Balloting! The discussion continues. I think the word for it
is convergence, and from where I sit, convergence is a simple, natural,
human act. After talking about a whole mess of things, it turns out that
some are more important to the assembled group than some others. Of course,
all issues (potentially) are important to somebody, and nobody can, or
should, change that. But some issues are more important to everybody, or at
least most people. The question is how do you surface the really HOT ones
without doing violence to all the rest?

Sticky dots and weighted balloting (electronic or manual) are two good ways
(See the User's guide for details) -- The important thing is to make clear
to everybody that this IS NOT a political win/lose situation. All issues are
still there, all are important to someone (presumably) -- but some are
really hot, and probably deserve a little more attention.

Peggy Holman and Chris, to mention a few, have developed another approach
which I tried for the first time (personally) last week with 400 healthcare
executives. Simply put: Open the space one more time. During the last three
hours of a 2 day Open Space I invited the whole group to think about all the
issues raised and if one issue, some combination of issues, or a totally new
issue raised itself in anybody's mind as being especially critical and/or
"actionable" -- to grab a piece of paper and post it on the wall. The energy
was enormous and in short order we had 16 postings which converted into 16
action sessions. Super.

Harrison

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 Staiger,
Simone (CIAT)
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 11:29 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: OS and prioritizing of topics

Dear all,

In the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, 15
centers worldwide funded mainly by the 58 countries, private foundations,
and international organizations) we are making our first exciting
experiences with OS. We used it in the framework of a Knowledge Sharing
project where we mainly try to introduce KS tools and methods into mayor
Center meetings. Among our team we recently had discussions on weather or
not OS can/should/may include a prioritizing of topics. In two of our pilot
projects we had group meetings of all the proposed topics. On day 2 of the
open space session, participants began their work by reading the discussion
reports prepared the previous day and prioritizing them through ballot
voting . Eight of the 19 topics/reports were selected for further discussion
and conversion into action plans. However some argue that it is against the
OS philosophy, others say that it is a good way to focus on what
participants feel like the most releva!
nt topics.

What do you think?

Thanks a lot in advance,

Simone Staiger-Rivas
Communications Unit
Webpublishing
Knowledge Sharing - InforCom Project (Information and Communications for
Rural Communities )
CIAT (Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical)
E-mail: s.staiger at cgiar.org
CIAT Web site: www.ciat.cgiar.org <http://www.ciat.cgiar.org>
InforCom Web site: www.ciat.cgiar.org/inforcom
<http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/inforcom>
Knowledge Sharing Web site:
http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/cgiar/knowledge_sharing/home.htm

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