Hi, Martin - You wrote: <The Board, chaired now by an "ENGO" that I do some work with, has asked that I facilitate three consecutive 2-hour board meetings in Open Space. Can you share with me some of your learnings doing such meetings? Any warnings?>
I have found it's useful to do a 3-hour Open Space (if that's all there is available timewise) to highlight issues and bring people together for a wee bit of talking around those issues - that's like an Opening Circle / Agenda setting, then 2 45-minute sessions, then a Closing Circle. 2 hours to me sounds like time only to raise issues but not work on them much, and not much ability to cross-pollinate or shift thinking. Sometimes only time for 1 session, so not a lot of movement possible between thoughts and ideas and differences in thinking. Okay so great for raising issues but who's supposed to own and work on them. I've seen it done well, but for (for example) an executive team to ask a membership organization what's important to them for the coming year (the group in OS is not expected to work on or carry forward on anything - it's more like a needs assessment). So my question is why Open Space, what are the deliverables, is this the right tool, can OS provide what these meetings are being convened for, and so on. Like Harrison, I say fight for more time.... You'll do great, of course... Lisa ___________________________ L i s a H e f t Consultant, Facilitator, Educator O p e n i n g S p a c e 2325 Oregon Berkeley, California 94705-1106 USA +01 510 548-8449 lisah...@openingspace.net www.openingspace.net -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Giannini Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 11:25 AM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: 2-hour Board Meetings Hi OSListers, Ireland has cooked up a veggie soup of sorts, throwing all of the Environmental NGOs together into a collective pool for the purposes of communicating both ways in one Forum and to distribute resources to them collectively rather than piecemeal. The Board, chaired now by an "ENGO" that I do some work with, has asked that I facilitate three consecutive 2-hour board meetings in Open Space. Can you share with me some of your learnings doing such meetings? Any warnings? Thanks a million! Martin Giannini * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist