[OSList] Open Space on private Mediation in Portugal on 3. /4. Febr. - coming soon!....

[Michael M Pannwitz]

Dear Jutta,
on April 22, 1999 ten ladies aged 57 to 82 engaged as volunteers in the 
work with groups of old people in protestant parishes in a district of 
Berlin met in open space for a full day to reflect on "Issues in my work 
with old people".
They had never heard of open space before.
Meeting in a venue that would have held an os for 60 people, this event 
was facilitated and ran itself as any other event I ever was part of. 
Participants managed their day, met in break out sessions (it was neat 
to have a large space with all breakout sessions possible in the corners 
of the large room) ... continuous buffet and news wall taking place in 
the adjoining hall way...and there was action planning...

on March 28, 2001 the eleven-member team for strategic planning of the 
German Railroad Corporation met for a day to improve their ability to 
find solutions to some pressing issues. They had never heard of open 
space before but were desperate since other stuff they had tried didn't 
work for them. They had a large number of issues and wanted to deal with 
all of them as a committee of the whole. After lunch, they restarted and 
decided to work in differently sized breakout groups, a big step for 
them in the direction of letting go of control and trusting each other more.
A month later they met again to reflect on their progress and further 
plans, all in os.

On July 17 and 18, 2007 nine staff members of a small NGO with a focus 
on adult education in Magdeburg met for 2 days in os to think through 
their program and activities. Some of them had miserable memories of an 
os event they were part of  but most of them had never experienced os. 
Again, it worked similarly as in the os with the ten ladies eight years 
earlier.

Looking back at these 3 events and others of similar sizue, I find it 
worked  well not to make any adjustments to the procedure.
At the same time, your "presence" in a group of around ten people is 
considerably larger than with 100 or even a couple of thousand folks.
In other words, staying "invisible" is more work and not interfering 
with the forces of selforganisation is tougher to handle...and the 
tendency for the individuals in the group to reflect on the group 
process is larger (when a group becomes "large", which I think starts 
with 34, it is very complex and unpredictable so that the tendency to 
work at the level of trying to figure out the dynamics of the group 
diminishes and the focus on the issues increases).

Have a great time and lets hear how it went!

Cheers
mmp

On 30.01.2012 20:47, Jutta Weimar wrote:
> Dear Open Space friends,
>
> Sitting at the kitchen table in our partners house in Estoril, near
> Lisbon / Portugal we just talked about the Open Space event that will
> happen here on friday and Saturday this week.
> We met in Berlin last October, when Katian and Jose (www.mediarcom.com
> <http://www.mediarcom.com>) came to be part of a boscop team and
> experienced Open Space. And here is our concern:
> Sofar about 12 people have registered for the event and in a way it
> feels as this will be little. And to make a long story short: It will be
> very helpful, if you share stories of small-scale Open Space events with
> us (especially with groups unfamiliar with Open Space).
>
> Love to hear from you
> thanx in advance
>
> Junta Weimar
>