OS for research planning

Fri Dec 14 09:54:55 PST 2007

Allison -- great story, and with a lesson I think. Don't explain Open Space.
Do it! I can understand the temptation to explain, especially when faced
with the sort of person who appeared at the beginning wanting more
"structure." But as you all know, the more you explain it, the worse it
gets. And it wastes time. If the opening introduction from the sponsor is
very short and sweet, and you move right on into the "opening of space" --
things are up and moving before anybody has time to object, and once the
first issue is posted on the wall, there is no turning back. Everybody wants
to make sure THEIR issue is up there! If the sponsor is willing, I suggest
that he/she say little more that "Welcome to the Wheat Research group. It is
going to be good. And here's Harrison." My opening rarely takes more than 15
minutes even with some translation. So in something like 16 minutes the
"work" of the meeting is being done. And all the rest is history.

Harrison

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20854
Phone 301-365-2093
Skype hhowen
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com 
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.ho-image.com 
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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Allison
Hewlitt
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 11:32 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: OS for research planning

Hi Bo, All

My sense is that another example may not be necessary - especially as it 
doesn't involve doctors and other health care practitioners - BUT I 
thought that some might enjoy this story of an event which brought 
together a research team of some 30 members spread across seven 
countries in the spring of 2005 to develop plans for solving
some of the key science issues confronting wheat improvement.

It is one of my two most memorable OS experiences. Here is the write-up 
(taken from "Knowledge Sharing Solutions for a CGIAR without Boundaries")

Open Space: Setting the agenda
On Wednesday morning, with 39 people sitting in a large circle in the 
bodega (a warehouse that serves as a site for sorting and packing wheat 
seed samples), WIG coordinator Trethowan formally opened the group’s 
first annual meeting. He stressed that the meeting would be an 
opportunity to discuss wheat science, specifically how to conduct 
high-quality research for CIMMYT’s programs. One of the facilitators 
then explained the Open Space approach. During the facilitator’s 
introduction, a scientist strongly objected to the process proposed
and to the presence of the facilitators from the KS Project team—“Here 
we go again with a couple of management consultants who are going to 
waste our time and distract us from our own agenda.” It was clear that 
he wasn’t alone. There seemed to be particular concern about the large
amount of time allocated to the exercise — especially in light of the 
brevity of the overall meeting. He preferred to have a more formal 
structure imposed on the meeting at the outset.

The objection stopped the flow of the meeting dead in its tracks. There 
was an uncomfortable edge to the opening session. The facilitators 
offered further explanation of the process and Trethowan asked the group 
for a measure of trust. The session then continued as planned.

Participants with topics to propose wrote them down on cards. All the 
cards were posted on a wall—the “marketplace”—with times and locations 
of discussion groups.

The topics identified by participants covered a lot of scientific 
territory—from wheat breeding strategies to training for national 
research systems and biotechnology applications. The small-group 
discussions were generally animated, focused and at times provocative.

Over the course of the day, participants continued to add new topics to 
the marketplace. Space had been created to discuss all issues of 
importance and participants were now willing to take advantage of it.
By the end of the day, participants were engaged and energized and 
requesting additional time the following day to continue their 
discussions. When participants were asked to share their impressions of 
the day in a phrase or sentence, their responses included the following: 
“Where’s the low morale?... I take my hat off to you all.... How can we 
put words into action?... Cross-fertilization of ideas.... I can
now put faces to names.... Glad not to have regular presentations....
Hope we can get into the science tomorrow.”

Ranking topics and action planning
Most of the second day, Thursday, was devoted to discussion of selected 
topics and to drafting of action plans for those priority topics. This 
process began with a 20-minute period of reading followed by quiet 
discussion of the brief reports that came out of the previous day’s 
discussions.

Upon completion of a voting process, the WIG coordinator announced the 
five priority topics for further discussion and action planning. One of 
the facilitators then briefly ran through some of the necessities of a 
good action plan—concrete elements such as goals, who will execute the 
plan, in what time frame and with what resources. With those guidelines 
made clear, the participants broke into subgroups. Once again, the 
discussions were lively, detailed, and fruitful, resulting in five plans.

With day 2 of open space complete, what did the participants think of 
the process and results so far? Brief comments during the closing of the 
circle just before adjournment offer a few hints: “provocative ... 
interactive ... even better ... anxious ... mesmerized ... don’t know 
what to believe ... family ... hungry ... tequila!”

For the full article (and other examples of OS used by scientists and 
researchers) see
http://www.ks-cgiar.org/images/stories/pdf/ks_magazine.pdf

Best
Allison

Agneta Setterwall wrote:
> Hi Bo,
> 
> One year ago I facilitated together with a colleague of mine, who is a 
> doctorate scientist, an open space with invited scientists. The theme 
> was about sustainable rural development, and the goal was in fact to 
> generate /new ideas, questions, perspectives, methodologies and 
> collaborations/ in an interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary conference. 
> Some of the participants had a background i social science and others in 
> natural science.
> 
> Of course it all went very well, but to be sure before I answered you I 
> now asked her about the longterm effects - did it really made a 
> difference?  And she said yes, of course - but it had been better to 
> have more open space time. We had a 6 hour open space day 2 in a one and 
> a half day conference, that was all we could get at the time. Day 1 some 
> keynote speakers had their time, and the way we could find to open up a 
> little day 1 was to let all participants choose which one of the 
> keynote-speakers they wanted to discuss with in parallel groups after 
> the presentations. They did not have to decide which one before the 
> presentations. This was a little more open space spicy than usual in 
> conferences like this, but my friend and I felt a little frustrated and 
> longed to day 2 when we could at last let loose...
> 
> I can tell you more if you are interested. I have facilitated several 
> open space with scientists, both before and after this one.
> 
> best wishes
> Agneta Setterwall, in a chilly and sooo grey Uppsala, Sweden
> 
>  
> 
> Bo Laurent wrote:
>> Hi OSList,
>>
>> I'm a newcomer to the list. I've been to a demonstration of OS by Lisa
Heft,
>> and I'm now involved in planning a conference (for spring of 2009) that
will
>> use OS, and a diverse group of invited participants, to generate new
ideas
>> for research. The field is a healthcare issue in which progress has been
>> obstructed by isolation, adversarial factions, and too little attention
to
>> human functioning in social systems. 
>>
>> We're working now on raising money to support the conference. Do you have
>> examples you can share with me, or point me to, where OS has been used in
>> scientific research? Especially in generating new ideas, questions,
>> perspectives, methodologies, and collaborations?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Bo
>>
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-- 

Allison Hewlitt
Senior Program Officer - IDRC/Bellanet
mail: ahewlitt at bellanet.org
skype: allison_hewlitt
--
tel: +1 613-236-6163 x2393
--
150 Kent St
Ottawa Canada

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