Some Open Space practices

[Chris Corrigan]

I posted some stuff on my weblog back in March and added to your notes, 
Michael and since then it's been a process of noticing practices in both 
facilitators, myself and participants. I've enjoyed Doug's stuff on this! It 
could definitely be another research project - with a juicy appreciative 
protocol - to study these practices, how they arise and what happens when we 
cultivate them in ourselves over the longer term. As it is, in the one 
facilitation training I did structure around these practices, we spent most 
of our time noticing where practices of opening, inviting, holding and 
grounding show up in people's lives and then went to building on those to 
establish the ground from which a solid practice of OST facilitation 
emerges. 

My basic assumptions around training has always been that anyone with a good 
head and a good heart can facilitate OST, and that in order for the process 
to be more than a tool, it has to become grounded and integrated with the 
way the facilitator sees the world. I think that's true of any facilitation 
method, by the way. So this training is about finding those practices in 
daily life and assembling them into a way of thinking about working with 
groups and individuals and self to be able to facilitate OST really well. 

Noticing participant practices has value to me because as a facilitator it 
helps me hold space in a way that acts as a container for those practices to 
come forward. It also gives me some ideas about organizational and community 
dynamics as well and becomes the basis for great coaching conversations with 
leaders and sponsors.

Chris

On 5/24/05, Michael Herman <mjherman at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> oh, yes, those... and here is some of what we've written down about
> these practices...
> http://www.globalchicago.net/wiki/wiki.cgi?OpenSpacePractices ...if
> anybody's interested.
> 
> did you write anything else at your site, chris, or just scribble your
> additions to the page i posted (above)?
> 
> michaelh
> 
> 
> 
> On 5/24/05, Chris Corrigan <chris.corrigan at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have been musing lately on some open space practices. Michael Herman 
> and
> > I have worked our list of the four OST facilitation practices we share 
> in
> > "trainings": opening, inviting, holding and grounding.
> >
> > Thinking about the kinds of practices of participants now, largely 
> spurred
> > by Doug's recent Tao of the depth of open space, one of them seems to be
> > that the juicy meetings hinge on the quality of attention, honesty and
> > authenticity of participants. As if passion and responsibility are 
> merged
> > and held by invitation to be both open and grounded. I have to ask more 
> of
> > the participants in meetings if this is right, but my sense is that it 
> is
> > that overall integrity that propels us forward into newly opened spaces.
> > When people feel like they've been in a good OST, it is that this depth 
> has
> > been plumbed. I put this down to the Law of Mobility: the juice flows 
> when
> > the Law is there, but not used, as if we are bound together by an 
> attractive
> > force rather than repelled into groups. Something about how the energy 
> of
> > an atom works...why things don't fall apart. The stronger forces of 
> close
> > attraction against the longer range forces of gravity.
> >
> > Anyway - it seems abstract, but I'm sure it has some practical
> > applications.
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > CHRIS CORRIGAN
> > Consultation - Facilitation
> > Open Space Technology
> >
> > Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
> > Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com * *
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-- 

CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com

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