opening space with very small groups

Wed Oct 11 05:06:27 PDT 2006

Good morning to you all!

Well, I DID IT!!!! My first OST, and with a very small group of 5 people.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience with me a couple of weeks 
ago. I went there last night  with confidence in your advice, my heart, the 
group and the process. And it worked wonders!

There were only 5 participants. Three people chose not to come, one of 
which was a surprise for the sponsor. So I started off by saying that the 
people who were there were the ones who were truly passionate about the 
theme, and they were the ones we needed.

I did the usual opening in about 10-12 minutes, skipping most of the 
reassuring parts. They posted 11 subjects, combined three, so there were 8 
discussions in 3 rounds of 45 minutes each.

I followed your suggestions and expressed clearly the two choices they had: 
discuss everything as a group, which was very tempting of course, or follow 
the method. Then I suggested they give it a try at least for the first 
round of discussion, and one participant supported this suggestion. I added 
that they might find that discussing as a group would make it very 
difficult if not impossible to go through the 8 subjects in 2 hours and 
maybe using the Law and playing bumble bees would allow them to discuss 
everything and go deeper. Much like what happened to Diane, they gave it a 
try and never looked back. Of course, it's less natural with a small group, 
but it works really well anyway.

The next step will be action planning. They were all surprised at what they 
had accomplished, felt revigorated and inspired and now have a clearer 
picture of their situation and what they might want to do next.

As for me, it was a thrill. I felt OST was perfectly in sync with my self, 
and was both excited and scared of doing my first event with such a small 
group. I re-read Harrison's book during the weekend, read all of the advice 
received from you yesterday morning, meditated a bit before going there, 
centered my self and stayed focused to be fully present and invisible (this 
week's discussion about presence was inspiring) and let go of any 
expectations and fear to simply go with the flow of the moment.

I still feel the energy from the event this morning, and I know in my heart 
I found a path on which I'll travel for a while and bring people to 
discover. Thank you all for your support!

Esther

At 17:40 2006-09-19, you wrote:
>Hello Esther,
>
>I have had a couple with less than ten people. There's a few thoughts I 
>have about OS and a small group:
>
>- it seems to be even more important than with a large group to have a 
>central question which is very powerful. After all, if you have 300 
>participants and some really want to do something else,
>   that's one thing. If you have a few people, it could feel different 
> (meaning I am not sure whether it would really be different, because I 
> haven't experienced that yet).
>
>- I have also with the smaller groups done a full opening but with smaller 
>groups sometimes comes a smaller room. If the circle is very small, space 
>can get cramped. So I suggest to make
>   sure you have space enough
>
>- I have worked with teams in an organisation which had held 10-15 open 
>space events. Each team member in the leadership team had actually been 
>trained in OST.
>   Several times OST was used in creating the agenda and process for a 
> team meeting, but without the whole opening. Worked well.
>
>Greetings from (today) Holland,
>
>
>
>
>Gerard Muller
>Open Space Institute Denmark
>Phone: (+45) 21269621                   Skype: openspace1
>Mail: gm at openspace.dk
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>On Sep 19, 2006, at 2:29 PM, Communications Esther Matte wrote:
>
>>Hello everyone!
>>
>>First, let me say thank you for the wonderful learning I found in the 
>>OSList.  I’m new to Open Space, and even though I have yet to make my 
>>“first big circle” as Ted put it recently, I feel more confident thanks 
>>to you all.
>>
>>I may have two possible projects with very small groups (5-7 people)  
>>which is what worries me.  I have participated to one OST in my 
>>experiential training with Diane Gibeault (fantastic!), and 
>>co-facilitated one with 45 people. But I simply cannot visualize how it 
>>works with as few as 5 people. How do you do this? Do you have several 
>>rounds of discussions? In separate rooms? Do people actually work by 
>>themselves and team up? Can you do it in approximately 3 hours ? (Maybe 
>>20-30 minutes opening, 2 X 40-minutes rounds of discussion or 3 X 
>>30-minutes, action planning and closing).
>>
>>I'm sure some of you have done this. I'll be meeting with the first 
>>possible group next week, and nothing is set in stone yet for the other. 
>>Any comments, suggestions, ideas or warnings will be very much appreciated.
>>
>>Thank you very much in advance for your time!
>>
>>Esther Matte
>>Communications Esther Matte
>>1011, Marie-Victorin
>>Verchères (Québec) J0L 2R0
>>www.excellence.ca
>>
>>"L'art de dire"
>>
>>Tél. : (450) 583-5849
>>Téléc. : (450) 583-3513
>>
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