multiple facilitator roles

[Gerard Muller]

Dear All,

Thinking about our thread “multiple facilitator roles” I wondered if 
there could be a boundary issue here.

No doubt - as Michael’s post makes very clear - the amount of work to 
be done has some connection
to the size of the group. In terms of 
hours-to-be-worked-on-plannable-things  if the group becomes a crowd 
rather than a group, it is mosty practical in nature

When opening space I almost never have a co-facilitator - in terms of 
one or more persons being involved in opening and closing the space.
When I do, it is typically an OSonOS with collegues, one of us taking 
the role for each day.

However I have rarely felt I work alone - and the reason probably is 
that cooperation with the sponsor tends to be rather different from 
non-open space work.

I thought of the boundary issue when last week I was asked to help 
co-facilitate an event with the top 30
managers of a large multinational. Open Space does not feature on the 
program, and there will be a
team of five facilitators................... Do these 30 quite 
experienced people need so much facilitation ?
No doubt we will work very hard (too hard, as we are likely to do lots 
of things the group could well do
without us), and learn a lot from eachother while doing so. Will there 
be the learning across the boundary
(client group and facilitator team) which there could be ? And 
certainly it is unlikely that some percentage
of them will decide they want to learn facilitation - while some ten 
Open Space sponsors I worked with have since taken a training in OST.

In working with Open Space, the client does not need all that much 
help. Too much help may damage
the selforganising process. And if I manage not to do all the things I 
might do (with the best of intentions)
but are not essential they may actually create the team which invites, 
holds the space with me and feels responsaibility
  for the follow-up, as Lisa states quite beautifully. To me this also 
means not taking any tasks they may do themselves.
  So after the first couple of years when I had an assistant along who 
really knew how to make sure a copy of the report
would be there for everybody in time, I now almost always brief someone 
who works for the client to do this.
I do not bring a talking stick, but ask the sponsor to choose one. And 
so on.

So I guess in my practice there is as a rule one facilitator - who 
never works alone.

Greetings from Denmark,




Gerard Muller
Open Space Institute Denmark
Phone: (+45) 21269621
Mail: gm at openspace.dk




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