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What is Open Space Technology?
Open Space Technology is one way to enable
all kinds of people, in any kind of organization, to create inspired
meetings and events. Over the last 15 years, it has also become
clear that opening space, as an intentional leadership practice,
can create inspired organizations, where ordinary people work
together to create extraordinary results with regularity.
In Open Space meetings, events and organizations,
participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working
sessions around a central theme of strategic importance, such
as: What is the strategy, group, organization or community that
all stakeholders can support and work together to create?
With groups of 5 to 1000 -- working in one-day
workshops, three-day conferences, or the regular weekly staff
meeting -- the common result is a powerful, effective connecting
and strengthening of what's already happening in the organization:
planning and action, learning and doing, passion and responsibility,
participation and performance.
When and Why?
Open Space works best when the work do be
done is complex, the people and ideas involved are diverse, the
passion for resolution (and potential for conflict) are high,
and the time to get it done was yesterday. It's been called passion
bounded by responsibility, the energy of a good coffee break,
intentional self-organization, spirit at work, chaos and creativity,
evolution in organization, and a simple, powerful way to get
people and organizations moving -- when and where it's needed
most.
And, while Open Space is known for its apparent
lack of structure and welcoming of surprises, it turns out that
the Open Space meeting or organization is actually very structured
-- but that structure is so perfectly fit to the people and the
work at hand, that it goes unnoticed in its proper role of supporting
(not blocking) best work. In fact, the stories and workplans
woven in Open Space are generally more complex, more robust,
more durable -- and can move a great deal faster than expert-
or management-driven designs.
What will happen?
We never know exactly what will happen when
we open the space for people to do their most important work,
but we can guarantee these results when any group gets into Open
Space:
1. All of the issues that are MOST important to the participants
will be raised.
2. All of the issues raised will be addressed
by those participants most qualified and capable of getting something
done on each of them.
3. In a time as short as one or two days,
all of the most important ideas, discussion, data, recommendations,
conclusions, questions for further study, and plans for immediate
action will be documented in one comprehensive report -- finished,
printed and in the hands of participants when they leave.
4. When appropriate and time is allowed for
it, the total contents of this report document can be focused
and prioritized in a matter of a few hours, even with very large
groups (100's).
5. After an event, all of these results can
be made available to an entire organization or community within
days of the event, so the conversation can invite every stakeholder
into implementation -- right now.
6. AND... results like these can be planned
and implemented faster than any other kind of so-called "large-group
intervention." It is literally possible to accomplish in
days and weeks what some other approaches take months and years
to do.
The good news, and the bad news, is that it
works. Good news because it gets people and work moving, bad
news because that may mean lots of things are going to be different
than before. Wanted things can appear, unwanted things disappear,
and sometime vice versa -- but that's how life is.
In short, then, Open Space brings life back
to organization and organizations back to life.
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