[OSList] Open Space with some off-limits -- Individual Sessions

Harrison Owen hhowen at verizon.net
Mon Jul 18 04:41:01 PDT 2011


Ah - Now I see. I may be weird, but convening a session and having people
come has never been a large issue for me. When I do convene a session I do
so because I have a passion I would like to share or explore. If one person
comes and we have a great conversation that is terrific! If nobody comes
(and that's happened) I learned something. That "passion" was mine alone -at
least in that moment of time. Even better I am then liberated to assume my
prefer modality of Butterfly. Just hang out. Without fail, the "right"
people show up in the "Butter-sphere" J -- that great, wonderful, amorphous,
walk-about where great stuff inevitably manifests. And I think I have
learned something else. Over the years as I have wandered the Butter-Sphere,
I have come to appreciate that really juicy stuff happens there. Yes I know,
sane people would believe that the action is in the several sessions. And
clearly that is where it most obviously manifests - but I find the
"in-between" equally rich, maybe even more so. But I am sure  that is an
acquired taste.

 

Harrison 

 

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

 

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 20854

 

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

 

www.openspaceworld.com

www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)

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From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Harold Shinsato
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 2:12 AM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Open Space with some off-limits -- Individual Sessions

 

Harrison and Suzanne,

Thanks for attending my session on how to improve individual session
facilitation!

I totally agree that the "whatever happens" helps deal with the results of
hosting a session, Suzanne. And I also completely agree that the process of
the Open Space itself should not be interfered with. I'm not looking for an
OST intervention!!! Wandering facilitation trainers - ugh!

My wondering isn't about improving Open Space - it's about improving myself
- and maybe making that learning available to others also interested in
improving their own participation.

For myself, hosting an Open Space conference has been weirdly more simple
than getting people to come to my sessions! Part of it is that there is so
much help for how to host an Open Space. Lisa Heft's training was
indispensable for me. Attending other people's Open Space events was also
incredibly powerful. There's the manual, there's OSList. And actually
hosting and facilitating them was the biggest training ground of them all.
In a way, that's also true for convening successful OST sessions. Practice.
Do it. Learn from doing. Do it again. What I sense is that there's a lot of
the "learn from doing" that we don't really have to be doing alone. That
could be shared. There's a wealth of experience to get to the learning
faster!

Interestingly, the one particular challenge I had with getting the Open
Space to work was the same challenge I had with my sessions. Getting people
to come. It's nice saying "whatever happens" and "whoever comes" but I think
more guidance could be made available (but again, not in the Open Space).
One of the best advice I heard about this is that it's just about inviting
people into the circle and doing it again and again. But again, I think more
could be uncovered. One thing I just had a sense for myself was to reach out
to already existing communities and participate. The way to reach out is
something I'm still learning. The book "Made to Stick" has helped with the
wording. But I can tell there's more to learn.

There's another bit of advice I received just yesterday from a fellow
software developer who is also an Open Space fan. Arlo Belshee was
attempting to answer the question of an author I respect greatly about what
would work best as a session. I had already said my piece which reflected my
awareness of the community and what topics were the most interesting, and
how that might intersect with his own interests. I found Arlo's advice even
better, and in a way it was related. Arlo said he never plans his sessions
in advance as to what he's going to say. Instead he reads the room and hears
what people are talking about. And Arlo gets great attendance at his
sessions at all the Open Space events I've seen him at - which have been
quite a few. In a way, Arlo's advice sounded a lot like a Toyote Production
Systems practice (a lean manufacturing practice) called Genchi Genbutsu
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genchi_Genbutsu>  - "Go to the source to find
the facts to make correct decisions." It's about being more present and see
what's actually going on. Some people already know and can surface what
needs to surface at the right time. I seem to need to work at it!

This all happened yesterday for me at Seattle Lean Camp
<http://leancamp.crowdvine.com/> , which was a properly facilitated Open
Space Technology conference. Jeremy Lightsmith did a great job opening the
space. Many people wondered after the event why people are still paying
thousands for traditional conferences when so clearly we get better results
for just $50 using Open Space. It's a good question!

I got another powerful hint at what can help get people to come to your
sessions. At the Open Space evening news on Saturday for Lean Camp Seattle,
the facilitators asked what percentage of the attendees had been to "Lean
Coffee". It was over 50%! Their Lean Coffee was described as the same thing
as Open Space except in just a couple hours. It's an open forum that happens
about once a month at a cafe' in Seattle to talk about lean
management/software issues. Whoever comes is the right people. They put
their topics up on cards, like the Open Space billboard, and then work their
way through the topics in vote priority order. It's not quite the same as an
OST conference, but multiple people claimed that their lean coffee events
were basically "the same" as OST. Jeremy Lightsmith and Jim Benson have
succeeded in creating a full blown Open Space conference and getting high
attendance by creating the feeling of Open Space in stammtisch style in
advance - creating community and credibility by taking the time to initiate
and invite again and again people into conversation.

There's a lot more to be said here but this is already way too long. Perhaps
it'd be better for me not to ask the question, just be happy with the
guidance that's already available, and be satisfied. I hope I don't offend
by continuing to ask the question and wondering - if people don't like my
question I'm probably going to continue to host the session and attend just
by myself. I seem to do that often! But I'm going to keep asking: How can I
get better at convening successful sessions at OST conferences?

    Regards,
    Harold


On 7/14/11 3:01 PM, Harrison Owen wrote: 

Harold wrote: "It's interesting that Open Space gives very minimal advice
for convening sessions - but I can tell that some are much better at it than
others. Both in the choice of topics that are relevant and in the actual
facilitation of the group conversation. I continue to be curious about what
works and what doesn't work for the convening of individual sessions in an
Open Space."

 

It is a curiosity, for sure. And you are not the first, nor doubtless the
last to wonder. Over the years, people have tried just about everything,
ranging from "Providing Guidelines for discussion" - to recruiting a corps
of wandering facilitators, available upon request. Some even tried "assigned
facilitators." Or a "designated process - e.g. "Dialogue."

 

I can't say that I have seen it all, but what I have seen brought me to the
conclusion that any intervention was, at the very least, more trouble than
it was worth. And in worse case scenarios, actually counter-productive.
Nobody ever followed the "Guidelines." The "wandering facilitators" were
inevitably in the wrong place and either sat on their hands or were totally
overwhelmed. Attempts to manage the process with "assigned facilitators"
drove the "managers" crazy as the natural dynamics of Open Space refused to
follow any process they envisioned, and if they attempted to control the
dynamics of OS - well good luck! Mandating some formal process like Dialogue
really gummed up the works. It was just too slow and out of sync with the
ebb and flow of discussion. And it often seemed that people were more
concerned to "manage the process" than to talk to each other. Even worse,
stupid discussions (my judgment) were continued because people assumed that
if they got the process right, the discussion would improve.  From where I
sat the problem was that the topic was a mindless matter of minimal concern,
and yet the moribund horse continued to be beaten. Or something.

 

Perhaps it is the eternal optimist in me - or something about half full
glasses. My wonderment was that the sessions were as good as they were, and
generally speaking - better than any facilitated session I had ever
attended. Could it possibly be that the whole business of "facilitation" was
vastly overrated? Heresy!!!

 

But as I concentrated on what was clearly working very well "all by itself"
I began to notice that even in those situations where the discussion was
less than outstanding (by whatever standards), nevertheless useful things
were happening. For example, was the stated topic never addressed? Yes, but
what came up was infinitely better and more interesting, I thought. I think
I learned something: People really don't know what they are talking about
UNTIL they create to talk. Which is why tightly built agendas never seem to
work. Yes you cover the agenda, but did you do anything useful, productive,
creative? By definition, NO! You ended up in precisely the position you said
you were going to reach - so why take the trip in the first place? You were
already there. Just write the minutes in advance and cancel the meeting.

 

Then there were those situations where the whole thing was just stupid and
snarky. People argued endlessly about nothing of importance - just for the
sake of arguing, it seems. But even that painful experience turned out (more
often than not) to be a positive. Folks learned to use the Law of Two Feet.
Or at the very least, they learned that they COULD use the Law next time -
unless they honestly enjoyed being miserable and non-productive. Which does
happen. 

 

Anyhow, Harold, your wonderment is a shared one. But after some years
considering the emergent situation, I have come to the conclusion that any
fix I might propose will create more problems than it solves. That could
just be lazy, and doubtless younger and more subtle minds may find a way.
But I ain't holding my breath.

 

Harrison  

 

 

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