[OSList] OST facilitation technique: too prescriptive?

[Tom Brown]

Daniel,
I have seen this behavior for sure with larger groups. And the chat fest that can happens at the marketplace while other folks are trying to announce their sessions can be disruptive to folks who announce later in the process.
I have not implemented a solution to this, although I have noted the opportunity for improvement.
I think that it is worth the empirical test to see if a direct request closes the space or opens the space for others to hear and be heard. It’s my opinion that once the problem has occurred late in the building of the marketplace, it is probably to late to do what is needed. It’s my opinion almost anything you say may close the space. As the facilitator your are “taking control ” if you add an rule of decorum at the moment the problem occurs.
I can imagine that the reason you are interested in requesting this behavior on the part of participants. Is that you are requesting that folks respect one another enough to listen to their ideas, that they are taking the courage to share with the group. For some this may be difficult.
Instead of waiting till the problem occurs late in the market place construction you might try something like the following.
As part of the description about the process. … * Come up put your ideas down on one of their pieces of paper. * Put your name on the sheet. * Standup and say your session title and name to the whole group. * Find a time for your session and drop if off in the market place.
Nothing unusual here.
Then you might add.
Everyone has an important roll during this phase even if you are not suggesting a topic. Please listen carefully to all of the ideas as they are bing suggested. We would like you to make sure that the important ideas are being suggested. This can be used to drive prompting late in the in gathering of ideas. Is there anyone who has though of an idea that has not been suggested. We would value you stepping forward with that idea ….
Now when the opportunity of move folks from the market place come up. You have put a rule into the game that very easily allows you to very gently welcome folks back to the circle to listen to the remaining ideas in order to make sure that all of the important issues have been raised.
Just my $0.02. I’ve not done well with this in the past. What do others think?
If anyone implements this or typically does this. I would love to hear any results.
--Tom Brown tgb417 at gmail.com


On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 4:17 PM, Daniel Mezick via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
Greetings All,

Lately I am noticing that, at the end of the building of Marketplace, more than 1/2 or even 2/3 of the people may be milling around out of their seats by the Marketplace chatting while the last 10 or 15 sessions are getting announced and going to the wall. It can get loud, and sometimes the last few folks do not really get heard.

So I'm thinking of telling all the folks, as we start announcing topics, "...After you post your session to the Marketplace, we ask you to please return to your seat, to experience and hear the announcing of the rest of the sessions. After all the announcements of all of the sessions slows down, we'll declare the Marketplace open, leave our seats, and go to work. Thanks."

Assume there are 275-300 people in this situation.

If you have experience, I have 2 questions for you:

Is asking the folks to return to their seats too prescriptive in your view? Why or why not?



--
Daniel Mezick
Culture Strategist. Author. Keynoter.
(203) 915 7248. Bio. [http://www.DanielMezick.com/] Blog. [http://www.NewTechUSA.net/blog/] Twitter. [https://twitter.com/DanielMezick]
Book: The Culture Game. [http://theculturegame.com/]
Book: The OpenSpace Agility Handbook. [http://www.amazon.com/OpenSpace-Agility-Handbook-Daniel-Mezick/dp/0984875336]

_______________________________________________ OSList mailing list To post send emails to OSList at lists.openspacetech.org To unsubscribe send an email to OSList-leave at lists.openspacetech.org To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org Past archives can be viewed here: http://www.mail-archive.com/oslist@lists.openspacetech.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20180130/b2c9e0e8/attachment.html>