Dear OS Friends I am a recent 'convert' to open space, having used it very successfully now for a number of stakeholder consultataion forums in nearlly every state of Australia and two planning forums for small close knit teams of workers.
I am wanting to utilsie open space now for small organisations where there are at most five workers, a volunatray management committee and a set of other stakeholders - who will not necessarily action a strategic plan. I have the opportunity to use OS with ten such organisations (learning partnerships between schools and industry). Below is an outline of a process. I would appreciate any feedback from the wisdom of the group. My main questions are as follows: 1. I've seen open space work well for staff teams that work together on a day to day basis. The passion and responsibilitiy flows back into the workplace. What happens when you have a governing group such as a Board/Management Committee who particpate in setting directions, but are not necessarily the ones who action it. Similarly with other stakeholders who may have useful input, but then don't stay around. OST seems to risk a great set of ideas and discssions occuring and then all the actions picked up by the small staff group. 2. The staff are overworked and the Boards are voluntary and the business people in particlaur have little time to give. Two and three days OS are out of the question. What sort of processes over time can you use to pull a strategic plan together in OS (what do you think of the idea below?) 3. Can you use OS to generate the ideas and then have a passionate group use that material to write up a s/plan. Where does the detail (eg budgets, marketing plans) get filled in using OS? 4. Are there other ways to docuemnt a strategic plan that comes out of OS, other than the usual vision, mission, values, goals, strategies, actions, performance measures ...?? (I'm so bored of this! and I think others are too, but its still a useful model). Any experiences welcome. My suggested process: Stage 1. Preparation: do all the environmental analysis before hand to generate a minimum knowledge base (ie. needs analysis, competition, evaluation of past performance, stakeholder map etc). Circulate with open invitation and theme eg "What are the issues and opportunities for the future of [the organisation]?" Stage 2: Large stakeholder forum 1/2 day in OS on the theme. Or if not practical then a 1/2 day in OS with Board and staff. Stage 3: One 3hr meeting in OS with a sub-group including staff to develop the vision, mission, startegies and performance indicators. Stage 4: Executive Officer and facilitator to write up the outcomes into a strategic and business plan, filling in the detail. ANy thoughts most welcome. Thanks for your time and energy. Warm regards Andrew Suggested Process to Andrew Donovan Business Facilitator tel +61 3 9416 3021 fax +61 3 9416 2935 PO Box 1705 Collingwood VIC 3066 Australia