Dear Laurel, I always start the training with an open space in which people experience themselves in the role of participants. In a couple of instances there was time to discover the theme of the open space on the evening of the day before DAY 1. Even though that did not seem to influence the "flavor" of the os it did give the participants a chance to experience a process of arriving at a theme jointly. This is a "complete" os including documentation "convergence" and action planning over 1,5 days. And it starts immediately at the very beginning of the training after an only 5 Minute overview of the total training design. The next phase is an open space reflecting on their experiences, open space on open space. The next phase is an open space with the theme "I as an open space facilitator" which participants design from A through Z, facilitate, et. So it is 3 open space events in a row spread over 3,5 days, ideally 4,5 days. In other words, participants spend more than 90% of the time in open space. No lectures, no inputs. Usually, there are 40 to 50 participants and it works beautifully. To satisfy the participants desire for information, etc, we set up an open space-library, an open space-cinema and an open space-nuts and bolts room and an open space-handbook room (there is loads of material for everyone to organize their own handbook). During the entire training there are posters "questions" and "answers" which are dealt with in a 1,5 hour session towards the end of the training (most of the questions will have found answers in the course of the training). There is a little write up on this design (developed over 5 years in 10 trainings) on my website in English: Report on an open space-Training in Moscow, here is the link www.michaelmpannwitz.de/o_trainings_1.htm
Some 400 colleagues have gone through these trainings and loads of them are out there facilitating open spaces. All the best with your training Greetings from Berlin michael On Tue, 12 Jun 2001 14:02:31 -0700, Doersam, Laurel wrote: >I'm trying something new in my next OST training. The training will begin >with an open space event centred around work-life balance with the theme, >"Making a life while making a living". My intention is to put this out to >the business community as a professional/personal development day. That >way, we'll hopefully attract a group of people who are deeply invested in >the subject. The OST training will start off with one day in Open Space as >participants in this broader event. Then the next two days will be devoted >to the training as designed by Harrison and colleagues. I'll let y'all know >how it goes. And I'd love to hear if someone else has already tried this - >did it work well to give folks the flavour of a "real" Open space event? > >Laurel. > >* >* >========================================================== >osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu >------------------------------ >To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, >view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, >Visit: > >http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html Michael M Pannwitz Draisweg 1 12209 Berlin, Germany FON +49 - 30-772 8000 FAX +49 - 30-773 92 464 www.michaelMpannwitz.de To subscribe to the oslist, send the following message (and nothing but the message): "SUBSCRIBE OSLIST" to lists...@listserv.boisestate.edu SUBJECT field should be left BLANK * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html