[OSList] OST: Public vs Private events: apples and oranges?

Tue Apr 28 07:12:34 PDT 2015

Hi Jeff, Chris, Michael and All,

First of all thanks for your engagement in the thread's topic; and 
adding to the discussion.

And, I feel that I have to explain myself here.

After sleeping on this, I have come to realize that part of what is 
motivating me to post about "public vs private" events is....

.....my limited experience in Open Space.

  * I've attended dozens of public Agile-conference or
    software-conference events with segments that included OST.
  * I've arranged and helped to execute and participated in less than 20
    OST gathering held inside organizations.
  * I've also attended a few Open-Space-community events that were all
    OST over several days.

That's not a huge amount of experience data and almost all of is 
Agile-related. Agile being one kind of process change...

...And so here is my "aha", and related confession: almost all of my OST 
experience has been part of the Agile community (public conference 
events) or using OST with Agile adoptions (private OST events.)

And the differences are very striking. And that's where I am starting 
from when I discuss the divergences between public vs private events. My 
entire experience is around Agile stuff. In in this space, the 
differences are, well, striking.

The role of the Sponsor being an obvious example...

...Chris contributes:
/"My experience is that sponsors of any event who are unwilling to do 
the pre-work to shape an intention and invitation and to design the 
architecture for implementation of the results (whatever those results 
are expected to be) will miss the mark on transformation."/

And with respect to private corporate events: you can say that again!

Now if we look at the role of the Sponsor in a public event, say, an 
annual confab, like in a community of practice, like the Agile community 
for example, we can see some striking differences there.

In a public event, almost anyone can stand up and welcome the group and 
discuss the context, introduce the Facilitator, etc. So for example if 
the conference Chair wanted to delegate this temporary Sponsor role to 
someone else, they could, and the OST will not likely suffer from that. 
Because the cohesion is low. The folks are only there for 1,2,3 days, 
that is the risk or the investment or commitment to it.

But if this Sponsor-delegation stuff happened in org, and someone with 
little authority sent the invite, did the Sponsor role stand-up, 
welcoming etc, the signal is clear: this event is not authorized and 
therefore has no oomph.

The Sponsor role:
----------------
With Agile-adoption clients, I've seen this Sponsor-delegation stuff 
suggested and have strongly guided against doing it, based on the 
hypothesis that for process-change and other kinds of triggering 
transitions in organizations, the OST event must be clearly and highly 
authorized.

The Invite:
----------------
Plus: n most Agile-conference OST events, there IS NO INVITE WHATSOVER. 
The invite is implied via the conference offer, and attending the event 
constitutes acceptance of that "invite." Add to this the fact that the 
theme is often emergent in nature, defined not weeks in advance but 
instead days or hours in advance.

The Proceedings:
----------------
Finally, the proceedings. In public events, they are often nonexistent 
or an afterthought. In private events...WOW they are all over it.

Regarding Agile-related OST events: Not a whole bunch of people have 
experience observing public vs private OST events in the Agile space. If 
they do, they are not documenting or publishing them. Harold Shinsato 
has some experience here and I think Tricia Chirumbole also has a bit of 
this experience with both. As I say previously, most all my experience 
with OST is inside Agile-related situations, both public and private 
events....

...In the end what I am saying is:  the way the Sponsor plays, the 
Invite, and the Proceedings are all very different in my experience when 
comparing public vs private (all Agile-related!) events.

I think what I am calling "low cohesion" is a real factor in typical 
public Agile events. Does this pattern carry to non-Agile spaces? 
Circumstantial evidence includes the fact that BarCamp and Unconference 
formats have proliferated via public events; I view these formats as 
"OST Lite" derivatives of OST.

I wonder of this creation of more bare-bones OST-related gathering 
formats like Barcamp and Unconference for conference events tends to 
support what I am saying?

...so there you go. I wonder what y'all think about this...

Daniel

On 4/27/15 11:35 PM, Chris Corrigan wrote:
> Daniel…
>
> I think what you are proposing is interesting, measuring the 
> conditions and how much of each there are.  I say generally, that the 
> more of each you have, the better OST works.  But I’d never be able to 
> really put a number on it.
>
> And my experience is that there seems to be no difference between the 
> likelihood of public or private events being anymore or less likely to 
> exhibit these conditions. There is nothing inherent tin the ontology 
> of these two kinds of events that would predict that.  The five 
> pre-conditions do seem to point at specific factors in the ontology of 
> an event that would make for a potentially richer OST event.  Radical 
> transformation is rare and is never guaranteed.  But we can work with 
> conditions to create potential.
>
> in fact for me it comes down to the pre-work.  My experience is that 
> sponsors of any event who are unwilling to do the pre-work to shape an 
> intention and invitation and to design the architecture for 
> implementation of the results (whatever those results are expected to 
> be) will miss the mark on transformation.  (and this pre-work includes 
> being clear about what they are NOT doing as well)
>
> Like any event, the quality of the container matters.  Paying 
> attention to the constraints and the attractors builds a container 
> where a real need is allowed to produce real conversations which can 
> create real action and ultimately change.  If you don’t break people’s 
> patterns and expectations of a meeting or conference beforehand, it’s 
> unlikely they will come prepared for transformation.  And that is the 
> biggest predictor of “flat feeling” OST events for me.
>
> I think your text tagged <HERESY> below is actually <HYPOTHESIS> and 
> needs to be tested in some way.  But the test will apply to your 
> practice, your context and the particular events that you are drawn or 
> invited to.  The practice of working with clients in Open Space is 
> impossible to standardize.  It is an artisanal practice.  There are a 
> few basic skills and talents one needs to have developed in order to 
> assure quality, but nothing can take the place of experience and the 
> path of mastery that is individual and practice based.
>
> Chris
>
>> On Apr 26, 2015, at 11:30 AM, Jeff Aitken via OSList 
>> <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org 
>> <mailto:oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>> wrote:
>>
>> <HERESY>
>> And that is why I think OST is for "development and transformation in 
>> organizations" (that actual subtitle of the SPIRIT book) and that it 
>> is not at all as effective, in terms of impact, when implemented in a 
>> public conference.
>> </HERESY>
>>
>> I am guessing the scores for the 4 dimensions are almost always be 
>> lower in a public vs. private event.
>>
>> Certainly that is my general subjective observation, based on a small 
>> sample of direct experience (less than 20 experiences doing OST 
>> inside corporations...)
>

-- 

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