I did it - My First OS

Thu Apr 30 09:50:18 PDT 2009

Dear Bui,

In the last 2 days, I had been wanting to share my thinking, which Michael
has just so well put into words. Being busy around other passions makes
space for others and then one can bumble bee in. So this bee will add one
suggestion. 

Consistent with that non worried, detached approach Michael described, as
facilitator one could just open the space again inviting participants to
create a Market place for Action, writing actions on the blank topic sheets
left in the centre of the room from the opening - just like they did at the
beginning. The process will be clear instantly to participants as they are
by now familiar with it and the amazing results they just experienced. 

You would have prepared post-its in advance for multiple meeting spaces;
they would stick one to their action topic sheet before posting it on the
market place. 

Then even if there is only 10 minutes left for group work, whoever shows up
at each meeting place decide on a minimum amount of things and write it on a
FC sheet: the action topic title, convener, who participated, a time and
place for next meeting where the action plan will be worked out, who else
should be invited, how you will invite them and coordinates of the contact
person coordinating this next step. 

You could have even printed these questions on a Flip chart page or spread
sheets with the questions on chairs in the circle before you reconvened
after the discussion phase. For a larger group, a sheet could have been
included in participant kits.

They post the action sheet on a new Action-Breaking News wall and join the
circle for closing. Action initiators type in their report after the circle
closing or organizers take pictures of the reports or enter them and
distribute them to participants or post them on a web asap after the
meeting.

I and others have done this with groups of 450 people in a very short lapse
of time and it works. Harrison also describes it in the latest edition of
his OST guide as well as its origin. This "opening space again for action"
is an old idea some of us OS facilitators cooked up during the Toronto
OSonOS in the mid 90's, so excited were we about the power of the OS spirit
of mind. 

For an intact organization that has an ongoing life (different from just a
gathering of people from different places meeting once around a point of
common interest), opening space again for action works even better if the
group has taken time to identify collectively their priorities before
opening space for action. This happens after reading reports and takes only
15 minutes to do even with a group of over 400. 

With priorities identified, a common vision emerges with a sense of
direction on which the actions, are proposed, at least most of them, instead
of having a feeling that it's anybody's own personal pet projects which may
be going in all directions.

I add my congratulations to the chorus heard so far regarding your first OS.
Your audacity deserves these kudos. Happy to see someone spreading this
wonderful OS thing in the East side of our part of the world. I am looking
forward to hear from you about your next audacious step with Open Space.

Cheers,
Diane

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Michael
Wood
Sent: 30 avril 2009 02:18
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: [OSLIST] I did it - My First OS

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

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