I have Opened the Space in a number of Strategic Planning Processes. There is one brief story of its used with the Royal Bank Risk Management on my web-site. In that case, the vision was developed by the senior team. The Strategic Directions were developed in the Open Space with the participants given the freedom to act on what they developed, up to a budget of $100,000. The Open Space report became the basis for the senior team in developing the formal "plan" that was to be submitter to the CEO. However, those involved in the Open Space were already acting on the plan the day after the left the event. It meant that the three-year plan was largely completed in 2 years. Henry Mintizberg's new book "Strategy Safari" helps to unpack most of the traditional planing processes in some useful ways. Open Space enables an organization to deal with the emergent, by letting key elements of the plan emerge and by establishing a community of people who can respond to the unexpected. To me it is always an interaction between the "intentional" planning process and developing the capability to deal with the "emergent" opportunities and challenges than cannot be anticipated.
Larry Larry Peterson Associates in Transformation 41 Appleton Ave., Toronto, ON, Canada, M6E 3A4 Tel:/Fax: 416-653-4829 lpa...@inforamp.net http://www.inforamp.net/~lpasoc