[OSList] Agile Boston format for 1-day conference event

[Daniel Mezick]

For the past 6 years, since 2008, we have successfully used this1-day 
conference event meeting design (listed below) to socialize Open Space 
in Greater Boston. One of the design goals is to give people a taste of 
OST and gently introduce them to the concept and format.

We have done 11 half-day Open Spaces with 175 or more people 
participating, since 2008.

The AM is what everyone thinks they want: the predictable and 
well-understood conference format, the usual routine, with keynote, 
breakouts etc.

The PM is the canonical Open Space format as described in the Guide. We 
do full proceedings, because we noticed that the Guide has lots to say 
about these, and typical public OST events have weak proceedings... or 
none at all. So we experimented and innovated a little bit....

Proceedings

It includes full proceedings. We modify that a little: We have people 
who process the proceedings for the session conveners. This lightens the 
load on the session conveners and makes it more likely that even a 
newbie will convene a session. They remain responsible for seeing that 
the session proceedings gets collected.

For smaller events, we render the PDF right there, by entering the text 
and pictures of the artifacts (flip chart diagrams etc)
For larger events, we take a picture of the filled-out forms, send them 
to a transcriber we have engaged, and they send back the text in real 
time during the event. The event ends and within 12 hours we can get the 
PDF into everyone's inbox. 90% of the woerk is done when the Open Space 
ends. Then we drink martinis. And to the rest the next day.

Multiple Exit Points

One aspect of the 1-day design is what we call "multiple opt-out exit 
points": people new to Open Space might NOT be comfortable with it as 
described in print. So we provide explicit messaging in the promo, like 
this:

"Open Space in the afternoon..after a great lunch..."
"You do not have to do anything at all during the opening. You can just 
sit quietly and observe it."
"...if you do like it, you can participate for awhile, and even then, 
leave anytime you want...."

So the thinking of new participants might be....

"...I'm going to the event to hear from the AM speakers. The lunch is 
free, so I stay for that..."
"...This Open Space thing..hmm...it says I can observe the opening 
without having to do anything, maybe I'll do that...sit in the 
back....and bailout if it's not my cup of tea....if I stay, I can still 
play passive, and exit anytime....hmmm..."

The basic idea is to invite people into it. We do that by providing 
multiple opt-out exit points. Easy. We do messaging that makes it plain 
you can watch the opening and decide for yourself if you want to stay or 
go. Etc...

They usually all stay. All day. They get to the opening and once they 
are there, they usually go all the way. Many newbies end up convening 
sessions!

=========================
Agile Boston 1-day Conference format:
=========================
Moving through time: AM is a traditional conference, PM is Open Space

AM: Theme X (might be stated as a statement)

Keynote speaker (full assembly)
Break
Other plenaries (full assembly, shorter time length than keynote)
Break
Breakout sessions (held in smaller spaces)

LUNCH
...setup Open Space at lunch...

PM Theme X (always stated as a question)

Open Space opening circle
Open Space
Open Space closing circle
Social/happy hour

Within 24 hrs or less:
Proceedings out

-- 

Daniel Mezick, President

New Technology Solutions Inc.

(203) 915 7248 (cell)

Bio <http://newtechusa.net/dan-mezick/>. Blog 
<http://newtechusa.net/blog/>. Twitter <http://twitter.com/#%21/danmezick/>.

Examine my new book:The Culture Game 
<http://newtechusa.net/about/the-culture-game-book/>: Tools for the 
Agile Manager.

Explore Agile Team Training 
<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-training/> and Coaching. 
<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-coaching/>

Explore the Agile Boston <http://newtechusa.net//user-groups/ma/>Community.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20131030/0090d48d/attachment-0008.htm>