Eva, congratulations for your courage and many thanks for inspiration you gave us. ----- Original Message ----- From: Eva P Svensson To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2005 6:29 PM Subject: A report from a taster of OST in 1,5 hours - long!
This is a report from my "taster of OST in 1, 5 h with a lot of people" The background was that I had been given the opportunity to hold breakfast meetings to present OST as a taster around the topic about "How to create commitment in your organizations". The participants were managers from different companies. The sponsors was a union for managers (yes you read it right - we do have that in Sweden :) ) and a Swedish Business School. When the invitation was sent out they where kind of overloaded with people signing up for the event. And as the location was kind of a given - we decided to have both breakfast and lunch meeting. There were between 24 to 75 people in total 6 meetings in 3 days in the 3 major cities in Sweden! In total 274 people who had a taster of OST for the first time! We send out written information about OST to the participants beforehand so that they had a chance to learn a little bit more before the workshops. The information was about what is Open Space Technology - explaining the principles, the law, that the participants create the agenda, when to use OST etc. This information was also available at the workshop when the participants arrived together with some of Harrison's books, a folder of OST that I had made up and an "OST quiz" - an idea I got from the list - (thanks Edward!). Theme: How to create commitment and participation - welcome to a taste of OST! The Givens: I had this printed up in the room: * We are not solving the topic about commitment here today in 1,5 h... * This is a taster * Would like to give you an experience * I was available after for answering questions etc And this is how it went: I had kind of a "normal" opening - but shorter than I am used to - didn't tell so much about the background of OST as I use to do. Then the agenda setting was quite short and the marketplace "buzz" even shorter. All this 3 done in 30 minutes. In the time matrix there was of course only one breakout session but I made it visible how it could have been by putting up "empty" post-it notes besides the actual one. Then we had one 35 min breakout session. Reports were made on flipcharts paper, and put up on the news wall. Then back to the collective circle were I had put up a flipchart paper with "what could you achieve if you had; 4 hours - 1 day, 1, 5 day, 2, 5 days of OST". And then I talked a little about the role of the facilitator. Closing circle - with a question from me "what have you noticed for yourself here today about commitment" - very briefly. After that we did a short reflection of the process looking into the Medicine wheel - Leadership, vision, community and management. Everything within the 90 minutes OK, + 5 min at the most in one workshop. When I planned this my first intention was to have 2 even shorter breakout sessions but I am glad that I choose to have just one. In this format they had the chance to have some dialogues and many commented in the closing circle that they were very surprised how far they could get in such short time. And that they had got good suggestions and were much energized to go back to their workplaces. Many of the comments was "great method", "I will throw away the agenda in my ordinary meetings", "this I will definitely go home and practice on my own group", "it was so nice to be able to choose to use my free will" "since we all choose were to go - we went directly to the issue" etc etc. i.e. very positive feedback. Some thought of course that it was too short but that they were very positive and some said "we had done it all wrong back home when we appointed members to our project teams - we shall not appoint - they shall choose!" I think that the freedom of choice was one of their biggest experience and an unforgettable learning. For myself - I found it a big challenge to have 2 OST meetings so close to each other - just 1,5 hours between breakfast and lunch - I had problem knowing when I said what, like "have I already said that now or was it in the breakfast meeting?". Time was of course too short - and of course should we have had more time for the agenda setting - with 75 people not knowing each other you definitely need more than 10 minutes! So there was between 6 to 10 topics posted. And the smaller the group - the more topics. Should I do it again - definitely but I would think it over one more time having two in one day with just 1,5 hours in between J Thanks a million to you all - for all the support, feedback, suggestions, interest - and for holding space for me on this journey! :o) Eva P. S when I tell people about our list - the support, help and loving - they are just amazed! Bästa hälsningar Eva P Svensson EPS Human Invest AB "Verksamhetsutveckling genom människor skapar långsiktigt välmående företag och organisationer!" Anåsbergsvägen 22, 439 34 ONSALA Tfn: 0300-615 05, Mobil: 0706-89 85 50 e...@epshumaninvest.se, www.epshumaninvest.se * * ========================================================== 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 * * ========================================================== 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
