[OSList] Fwd: 1,000 participants in 4 hours - The Report

[lucia pavia Ticzon]

keep going, sis ~
spirit abides and the universe is spacious...
blessings ever more...to you and us all !!!


On Thursday, August 1, 2013, Sharon Joy Chao wrote:

Just two weeks ago I had this interesting experience of opening space for
1,100 (yes, the number swelled) under 4 hours. You probably remember the
massive exchange in OSList on how to convene under these conditions as we
burned the line talking about the merit of this assignment. The extent of
our discussion was remarkable for it showed the depth of wisdom and passion
attached to the practice with ideas flying from one side of the globe to
the other.

It started with an invitation to a two-day symposium on performance
management system in government service. And because it’s a symposium there
were 6 speakers lined up including a dozen others for concurrent sessions.
Day 1 had a couple of plenary and concurrent sessions. Open Space was
slated in the morning of Day 2 followed by a formal symposium integration
and closure in the afternoon. This was the first time HR people in
government are called together, and there was a good mix of people from
national agencies, government corporations, state universities and local
government units in attendance.

The open space session focused on making performance management system
(PMS) in public service truly essential, responsive and life giving.
Sitting through Day 1 presentations and forums made me realize that the
audience have compelling stories to tell in addition to having contending
views on how to move PMS in their agency. This prompted me to check my own
motivation as I worked with government in the past and I know that PMS has
always been a thorny issue in the service. I need to bring respect to
everyone involved and there’s no sense adding my own ideas and arrogance to
the issue.

Bits and pieces of the process I used that somehow worked despite the
number and the time configuration:

·        Space was tight to include provision of an open space in the
middle, but the hotel staff did an incredible job of assembling 5 layers of
chairs in concentric circle. With this arrangement a thousand chairs almost
reached the wall but then again that’s fine as there was ample space for
people to move in the center. To facilitate movement an open aisle was
provided from four points of the room so what we actually had was an open
circle.

·        Opening was limited to an hour with 15-minute sponsorship and a
walkthrough of the theme and the OST process. The whole spiel gave me time
to completely/slowly walk the circle to establish some degree of proximity
with the participants. The rest of the hour was spent getting people to
queue and publicly announce their topics.

·        Convenors used placards (illustration board stapled on three-foot
bamboo stick) instead of papers to publish their topics. There was no
marketplace because the market was mobile. It was messy, disorderly and fun
when convenors started to go around the room for membership, while the rest
decide which topic to join. The decision to use placards was brought about
by hotel’s policy not to stick anything on the wall, and this policy
actually worked to everyone’s advantage.

·        It helped to talk about chaos openly and early on. There’s no way
I can manage a thousand in four hours; and the only other thing left was
expect chaos, accept it, and work it to my advantage. At the same time I
remained calm and secure despite the seeming disarray inside the room
especially when people start standing up and moving into groups. It’s
essential to coach the sponsor to expect it. The analogy I used to convince
them was that of a  wedding event, one can think things through and
organize it to death but then again things don’t usually turn out as
planned. I also told the participants to expect chaos, learn to live with
the mess and love it.

·        When all the topics were declared (about a hundred), I realize it
did not make sense sticking to the original plan of having two one-hour
session, despite the color coded placards and instructions for groups to
have two separate time frames. With placards on hand, people immediately
self organized. Not even those sticky numbers posted (yes, this was the
only concession we got from the hotel) made sense at this point. Respecting
that tendency, I decided not to call for two sessions but instead do a
two-hour session on the topics generated. This two hour event gave
convenors ample time not only to co
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