Hi Rich, I am interested in understanding how "value" is measured. How "value" is defined.
I am also curious about how you are defining Open Space Technology. Are you measuring a one day event, a two day event? It is my experience that value over time increases when an event is at least two days and for sure, when convergence and action planning is done. There is longer retention of benefits when a report form is used that is a bit guided. Many of us use this. In my travels, I have found that there are many many variations of what people are calling Open Space Technology and I wonder how you have handled this in your research. And was Open Space Technology ever intended as a "single use" intervention and should this be the basis of measurement? As you know, I am a strong supporter of the Open Space Organization, (which is not a MODEL or a prescription and every Open Space Organization is different). There are some ingredients in common to be attended to. And the use of Open Space is frequent within the organization as well as informing the entire management style and corporate culture. When Open Space is used frequently, there is no decline in value over time. Sometimes the whole organization destructs but this is not a decline in value over time the way I see it. De-structure is needed before Re-structure, Con-struction can occur. Even if an organization is not an Open Space Organization, and simply uses Open Space Technology more than once --I think the findings would be that value doesn't decline over time. For example an organization who does a big Open Space Technology meeting and then from that meeting divides the results into "do it", "clarify it" and "open space it". The latter results in several shorter and smaller Open Space Technology meetings to get actionable items moving forward hopefully then turning them into "do its" or "clarify its" which of course in turn lead to more "open space its" and of course this is an endless creative cycle and I'm not sure at what point the research would get its snapshot :-) I look forward to finding out more from you. Kindest regards, Birgitt Birgitt Williams Make Genuine Contact! Dalar Associates: organizational effectiveness consultants Striving for Success? Ready to exceed your expectations? Contact us for consulting services, training, conference and meeting facilitation, and keynote speaking. www.openspacetechnology.com <http://www.openspacetechnology.com> -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu]On Behalf Of rnor...@digital.net Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2000 7:21 PM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Re: A Story from OZ This is great -- but for me >the math would be harder then the Open Space. But there was a time when I >did an Open Space for a $300 million company -- small but quite well known. >The CFO was furious. We basically closed the company for two whole days. He >figured it cost him a Million a day. Anyhow, but the end of the first day, >in addition to a whole mess of other stuff, the folks had designed a new >product (including manufacturing and marketing plans) and re-designed their >inventory system. The CFO figured the first was worth $24 million a year, >and the second saved $4 million. ************************************************************************ Harrison, Was this The Rockport Company? Is so, may I use your comments as a part of my research paper. Not much reported on value in monetary terms that I can see from my data. A whole bunch of other types of repoted value though. One trend I have noticed in the data, is a large fall off in reported value over time from immediate value to post OS event value. This matches the basic concepts of "dissipative systems". My thought is that Open Space could be used as a "snap shot" of the real culture systems in an organization and not the "masked" culture systems that orgs would believe they are. Maybe I am seeing a superb potential in OS for conducting ongoing and fluid org cultural gap analysis (conducted in OS), particularly if organizations reach a state of continious change...at the speed of thought? This "real time" gap analysis could be useful to help see the places where the loss of energy (dissipation) is or may be influencing or impacting the stability of the org. OS could be a prepetual temperature guage to forecast if the organization is cooking or may possibly be cooking at or about right temperature...simmering, boiling etc. for the org to change. Come to think of it, I've never been in a stable organization and don't know of any except those that are now dead (entropy set in). Rich Norris Satellite Beach, Florida (407)779-0531 <rnor...@digital.net>