Open Space for small groups

[Erich Kolenaty]

Joelle and Chris, and all the other openspaceniks,

I can confirm your experience with small groups. I made an OS for 13 some 
months ago for  1 and a half day. There were 4 working sessions, 11 topics 
and a couple of hours for conversion and deepening the found solution. It 
was a lot like an OS for 113, but indeed it is much harder to get out of the 
way. I tried to keep me busy all the time and not to join the people except 
for morning news, evening news and the conversion. It was a great experience 
and I found out once again that the important criteria of success is, that 
all the conditions for successful open spaces (different views, important 
business issue, complexity, urgency etc.) are fullfilled. And in my opinion 
the fully coverage of this conditions is much more important in a small
group.

Erich
from lovely Vienna
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Chris Corrigan
  To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
  Sent: Friday, August 11, 2006 8:07 AM
  Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Open Space for small groups


  Justin:

  The hardest thingto do is get out of the way.  It is much harder for a 
facilitator with a group of five to just leave the room and let them work. 
So I usually volunteer to type notes for them while they work, which lets me 
be with them but stay out of the way.  If I was doing my first again, I 
would take the 175 I was with and not the 8.  It's a lot easier with a 
crowd, ironically.

  Chris


  On 8/10/06, Joelle Lyons Everett <JLEShelton at aol.com> wrote:
    Justin--

    I've used Open Space a few times with groups of 5-15--no question that 
it works.  I often find that the group is reluctant to divide, and may cover 
all the topics sequentially, though sometimes even a small group will break 
out into groups of 2 or 3.

    After a large Open Space conference of around 100 people, I continued 
meeting with a Transition Team that was working with logistics and emotional 
concerns for a move of two work groups into one new building.  This team was 
8 or 9, and we used a slightly modified Open Space format for our monthly 
3-4 hour meetings.  This group chose to work together, topics were posted by 
tem members at the start of every meeting, and the talking piece created for 
the large Open Space usually came to the table.  We met in a circle around a 
large conference table, for the reason that there was no possibility, in 
their overcrowded office space, to move out the tables.

    Because there was a lot of complicated project management to track, I 
generally kept a list of items that would need to be followed up at a later 
meeting.  But it was very rare for an ongoing item to be overlooked when the 
topics were posted.  I also loved that for every action item identified in a 
meeting, someone volunteered to take responsibility for it before the 
meeting ended.

    I think there are some parallels with the organization you mentioned.  I 
find that after a group has met a few times in Open Space, the principles 
and law become "business as usual" for the group, sometimes quite a 
different working climate.

    Joelle Everett
    Sound Resources
    Shelton, Washington, USA * * 
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  -- 
  CHRIS CORRIGAN
  Consultation - Facilitation
  Open Space Technology

  Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
  Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com
  Open Space Resources:  http://tinyurl.com/r94tj * * 
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