opening space with very small groups

Joelle Lyons Everett JLEShelton at aol.com
Tue Sep 19 22:05:00 PDT 2006


Esther--

My experience with very small groups is that they often want to stay 
together, either because they want to discuss all the topics, or because they feel a 
little strange moving into even smaller groups.   I like Diane's suggestion to 
have a large enough room.   When there is physical space, I find that soon 
there are two or three people meeting on a separate topic, and even the group 
that stays together might like to move to another area when they change topics.

It can feel a little awkward to walk the circle with a very small group.   I 
sometimes walk around the outside of the circle of chairs, then come into the 
circle on the side to explain the Open Space process.   When you are there 
with the group and the actual setup, you will know what will work for you.

I especially like Open Space for a small group of people who normally work 
together.   The process is just enough different from everyday that it moves 
groups out of their everyday habits and may even cause them to question some of 
their assumptions.   This releases a lot of energy and creativity--people get 
excited.   

Please write again and let us know what happens!   

Joelle Everett
Shelton, Washington, USA



*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20060920/f4cc8548/attachment-0016.htm>


More information about the OSList mailing list