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

[Harrison Owen]

Dan - if it were me, I would describe the afternoon as an essential follow
on to the morning's activities. "In the morning we have information and
challenge. And in the afternoon the challenge is yours... Where do you want
to go?" Or some such. 

 

This wouldn't be about "introducing" or "demonstrating" Open Space (neither
of which are particularly useful or effective, I find) - but rather about
doing some real work. And Open Space is the chosen venue for all of that.
The word to the participants would be ... "If you think it is worth while
coming, come for the whole experience. Open Space is not a possible
incidental. It could be the soul of the operation." Or something...

 

ho 

 

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

 

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 04843

 

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 Daniel Mezick
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 11:07 AM
To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
Subject: [OSList] Agile Boston format for 1-day conference event

 

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

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

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

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


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