I did it - My First OS

[Michael Wood]

Dear Bui

Congratulations and thanks for sharing the story.

Given that this OSLIST is a learning community I offer you the
following: 

In my experience Action Planning is the time when people ARE most likely
to look confused or unsure or just plain passive. I THINK this might be
because the freedom inherent in being asked to convene action planning,
or next steps conversations, is terrifying. This is where the rubber
hits the road - if no one convenes an action planning conversation, then
it may be that nothing much will happen, so a great deal of
responsibility is being called forth.

The solution to this (in Open Space), even in a small group, is not to
take back control and "facilitate more actively", but just to take a
deep breath and do nothing and let the confusion play itself out. If the
chaos leads to a question to you for clarification, you could remind
them of the task with words like:

"this time is an opportunity, for anyone who would like to, to take
responsibility for clarifying next steps on whatever actions you would
like to flow from today. I invite you to use this time in whatever way
would be most useful to you to achieve that end. The time we have
available is (specify the time...say 30 min, or one hour, or whatever).
If no-one steps forward to convene and Action Plan(s), then it just
means we'll finish a bit earlier - over to you"

Then you step back out (even leave the room if you need to).

Anyway - that's one idea for you to experiment with next time, if you
wish.

And in the case of what you did this last time, "whatever happens is the
only thing that could have"!

Cheers
Michael Wood 


-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Bui
Petersen
Sent: Tuesday, 28 April 2009 9:25 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: I did it - My First OS

I did it.

I facilitated my first Open Space on Saturday. As expected, it was small

(only 7 people including myself). We only had 3 hours for discussions 
and action planning. Thanks to the great suggestions on this forum, I 
created the following schedule:

9-9:30 Opening (agenda creation)
9:30-10:10 Session I
10:10-10:50 Session II
10:50-11:30 Session III
11:30-12:00 Opening for Action

I did as brief an introduction as I could while still covering all the 
points. 11 topics were posted. Several were combined. It was interesting

that the most central topic happened to be posted first and that 
everyone joined that discussion. I think that probably everyone needed 
to part of that discussion. This session also went way over time 
compromising the time left for other topics. However, I don't think this

was a problem because the other topics didn't need as much discussion 
once the first one had been thoroughly dealt with. I kept reminding 
myself of, "Whatever happens is the only thing that could have."

As I am an integral member of the group, it was interesting staying out 
of the discussion. I had told the group that I for the most part would 
play a butterfly role. Someone suggested that I participate more 
actively but I don't think there was any need since everything I thought

of saying, was said by someone else.

When it came to the Action Planning, things did not work quite that 
well. I think there was to little time for reopening the space and 
people generally got confused about what to do. It would have been 
better if there had been a substantial break before that. When I noticed

the confusion setting in, I decided to facilitate more actively by 
helping to identifying action items and people responsible for them 
(actually all I did was write on a flip chart what people were saying). 
If there had been more time, someone else might had figured out to do
this.

Overall it was a great experience. Not all the topics were "officially" 
discussed but they were touched on enough for everyone to be happy.

Being my first time facilitating OST, I was surprised by the the amount 
of preparation needed with signs, schedule etc. For such a small group 
and only 3 hours, it seemed to be overkill. I think I will simplify it 
next time. Ideally we should be able to open space every time we meet, 
without having to be so regimented about it.

Thanks you all for your wonderful suggestions and support.

Bui

*
*
==========================================================
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

*
*
==========================================================
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