Hi Don and others who have been involved in the discussion re: Open Space and strategic planning and then the added dimension of strategic planning regarding that which will meet tight government guidelines. I note that Don has already said his thank-you's. I still wish to add some of my experience. Two stories follow, so this is long. They come from my perspective and experience that you don't need to mix anything with Open Space to get spectacular results. And it comes from my recent experience with my friend and colleague Virginia who today put in a proposal for a very large contract with a very rigid government organization to design a landscape for them. Virginia and I have done other work together and the formula works with results that far surpass any expectations. She is a landscape architect. Very rigid specifications and designs, right down to the millimeter. She used to design her landscapes (and some of them have been many hundred acres) in a traditional process of getting some info from the client in terms of their wants, then designing, then going back to a committee, then changing the design because of what then came up...and so on in a vicious cycle. Often going for 1 -2 years. She says that the greatest sadness of most landscape architects is that after the design is finally complete, most are put on a shelf an never implemented. I said that this sounds a lot like traditional strategic planning approaches. They take forever to finally be agreed upon and then they sit on a shelf, without being realized.
Anyhow, we've taken to starting the whole design process with a 2 1/2 day Open Space with all stakeholders present. And because of their passion and ideas, Virginia gets enough information for the design that she is now able to complete the master plan to everyone's satisfaction and in fact usually surpasses what they are dreaming because she has tapped right into their wisdom and passion ----within 40 days start to finish. Time and money are saved. The designs are delivered while the passion is running high. And what do you think that does to implementation rate??? To my way of thinking, we have a lot to learn by using this as a metaphor for our strategic planning. So, back to the story of today. Virginia could have proposed a more traditional process and I watched her temptation to do so. She really wants this contract---very prestigious. And the organization is very traditional and rigid. And today Virginia sent in a proposal that said that the process for the design had to be done in Open Space if they were to work with her. She would rather not have the contract that go back to methodology that won't deliver for her what she needs in order to do the best landscape designs that she can. This took courage for sure. And the willingness to lose a contract. And the assuredness that the contracts that she does get will have results far greater than any expectations in terms of meeting the needs of the stakeholders. If she had allowed for the mixing of another methodology and Open Space, she would not get the richness of depth and breadth of response and she would have far less spectacular master plans. For me this is parallel to what we would do with strategic planning by combining something with Open Space. It would work for sure, but would not achieve the same richness. Fortunately in our organizations, when we don't get the best, it is not so visible because we are usually complimented on doing a good job anyway and the client doesn't know that they could have gotten more. It is more visible in a physical landscape. The second story comes from my own time as CEO of a multi service social and health service. I was in this position for almost 10 years. We did well in our early years in terms of attaining government grants and in terms of our growth and our service delivery. We excelled beyond what should have been possible in the last 3 years that I was there. We operated as an Open Space organization doing all of our meetings in Open Space which included the issue groups moving forward as what Harrison now states as DO IT, CLARIFY IT, Open Space it again. Aside from the other amazing results, I thought I would list a few here 1. The foundation of all of our government grant applications were done in Open Space. We applied for and received about 6 million annually. 2. The foundation of a new housing complex including grant applications, housing design, service design, etc. was done in Open Space. A 12 million state of the art project with the rest of the community amazed at what we actually got $$$ for and how we actually convinced the government that items such as air conditioning that no other housing projects got, were easy for us to get. 3. The foundation of, building of a Board, and establishment of funding and other resources for a Community Health Centre, done in Open Space. Again a multi million $$ project, but what was much more important to me was that it was configured with the people who were to use it, in the process and so the $$ are actually spent to meet need. 4. All of the organization's policies were developed in Open Space. For sure, task groups went away and completed the word smithing. One of my favourite stories is the development of the sexual harassment policy. Folks who never would have been invited to draft this one (in this case the janitorial staff) were the prime movers behind this policy and helped establish an excellent and implementable policy. And no one had to "sell " it after the fact or do "laid on" training programs. Training happened, but the impetus came from within. The tangible results of what we did in Open Space were many. All of this was achieved during the recession of the early '90's during a time that staff morale stayed very high and very creative, despite a doubling in our client base with no extra staff. And no one complained that they didn't have the time to attend to the Open Space meetings. They knew we were working smarter and much closer to the needs of the client base AND that the most amazing solutions kept popping up. So...just thought I'd share this regarding the use of Open Space even with very rigid guidelines. I often say that it doesn't matter how big or little the space is, define it with a clear theme and clear and honest givens and there is space there to open and you might just be surprised. Enough said. I know I am lecturing. From my passion. Birgitt Bolton