[OSList] Knowledge sharing open space?

Methorst, Dicky dicky.methorst at minbuza.nl
Sun Apr 10 04:20:07 PDT 2011


hi Suzanne and Nancy,
 
Thanks for your thoughts and contributions. I would like to share my
experience with follow up of an Open Space event within my organisation,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Netherlands. As I am within the
organisation I had a chance to follow through what happened after the
Open Space with all the harvest. After two months we decided to go
through the harvest again and ask the convenors of the sessions what had
happened. Curiously enough they had forgotten what was written in the
reports. When they reread the reports, however, they found that a lot of
the suggestions had found their way somehow into the organisation. They
had become an integral part of the work, had been executed or had been
integrated into policies. Some issues did not need explicit follow up:
the participants had enjoyed the discussions, had learned a lot or
gotten other perspectives. On other issues no follow up action had been
taken: these appeared to be the suggestions that on second thought were
regarded as not feasible or not important enough. So without any
explicit and conscious follow up action or controlmechanism by
management.the things that needed to be handled got adequate attention.
There was one exception: suggestions given bij outsiders (ie external
experts/stakeholders) who wanted the Ministry to take certain actions)
had not been taken on board (yet). It is possible that this will still
be done, as the time between the Open Space and the questions asked
about follow up was too short. But these things were more likely to be
forgotten. By the way, the main purpose was not "knowledge sharing" but
finding opportunities to realize our ambitions for reaching the
Millenium Development Goals within a new challenging political policy
environment.
 
I wonder whether this outcome is another proof of the power of
selforganisation. Or does it mean that people had just brought the
things they wanted to do anyway and it would have happened even without
Open Space?  Or may be it would have happened anyway but less quickly
and less efficient/effective. 
 
Greetings from a sunny Netherlands!
 
Dicky

________________________________

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetechorg] On Behalf Of Suzanne
Daigle
Sent: zaterdag 9 april 2011 17:53
To: 'Nancy White'; oslist at openspacetech.org
Subject: Re: [OSList] Knowledge sharing open space?



Nancy, 

 

Makes a lot of sense to me!  Would love to know more about what you mean
by less "line of sight" and "more ongoing knowledge sharing behaviors
and practices over time."   

 

For first timers in Open Space especially and also for others who are
more familiar, I often feel that the conversations originating from
topics that people care deeply about, on which they convene others to
join,  can be exhilarating, exhausting and intense.  Capturing the true
essence of those conversations in the reports is almost impossible and
while I trust that each will have a cellular memory  of what they heard
and spoke, I feel that we all want more.  A "more" that is totally in
the spirit of Open Space, self-directed and self-organized, not
facilitated, led or interpreted by others.  

 

Often, it is so foreign for people to engage as they do in Open Space,
foreign to the typical ways that we know: meetings, workshops,
conferences, etc. etc. I feel that people leave with a memory of
something that happened that was so extraordinary and while the photos
and documents do capture some of what took place, the way of anchoring
this initial experience and building on it is not clear. Certainly,
thinking and planning ahead as part of the pre-work with an intent to
open space in the future is one way...though not always easy. As one
Engineer PHD Scientist said once during morning news:  "You can't know
Open Space until you experience it".   The conundrum then is that it's
not easy to discuss and plan future open spaces with a sponsoring host
or team when you've never experienced Open Space in the first place.
Regardless, I keep trying to build "what happens next" as part of the
pre-work conversations, inspired much by Lisa Heft whose passion for
pre-work knows no bounds.

 

Cheers on a Sunny Saturday in Florida,

Suzanne

 

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Nancy White
Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 11:09 AM
To: oslist at openspacetech.org
Subject: Re: [OSList] Knowledge sharing open space?

 

I have been trying some new things with knowledge sharing OS in terms of
the harvest. The traditional notes are great, but we started doing some
visual harvests (sometimes with post it notes, card sorting, sometimes
with a graphic recorder, etc.) to start "connecting" conversations
across sessions.  This has proven useful because often the people coming
together for the OS have TONS of knowledge to share, but less "line of
sight" to the importance and value of the PRACTICES of knowledge sharing
over time (and beyond the session). So while tons of knowledge can be
shared during the event, the breakthrough possibility is shifting
towards more ongoing knowledge sharing behaviors and practices over
time. Does that make any sense?

On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 11:03 PM, Methorst, Dicky
<dicky.methorst at minbuza.nl> wrote:

Lisa, you mention a book about knowledge sharing Open Space or Open
Space in university settings. In what aspects is it different from any
other Open Space? I have been asked to facilitate a knowledge sharing
event on healthcare. I'm having a discussion with them on them next
Monday, so I am really interested to know from more experienced people
what I should take into account when doing the open space on knowledge
sharing.

Warm regards

Dicky Methorst

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