Dear Rolf, Mark and Leslie, Thank you for showing up and participating in my invitation to explore, converse, and be curious. I am appreciative of all efforts that come from the same essence, and with the vision of providing options for humanity to choose a more life nurturing way to accomplish productivity and results.
My own experimentation even before I learned OST in 1992, was my quest to understand what it took to accomplish a successful organizational transformation. At the time I was responsible for a multi-service social service agency that eventually morphed itself into a social and health service agency. I had a fantastic Board of Directors that gave me the mandate to accomplish an organizational transformation as they had merged three organizations together and it was not going so well as one entity…as so often happens with mergers of former competitors. We made good progress from 1986 to 1992, but couldn’t accomplish the transformation that would shift us from fragmentation to connectedness. When I brought OST back into the organization, and added it to what we had already been working on, OST became the turning point we needed. We were among the first, if not the first, to take the original 2 ½ day OST meeting and experiment with a four hour meeting. Great results emerged. We had a template for the forms for the discussion groups to include next steps and future action. After a few OST meetings that I felt so excited about…because they do work in wonderful ways…we ran into problems. The outcomes from the meetings and the reality of our day to day business ran into each other. I developed another method Whole Person Process Facilitation (WPPF) to complement OST, taking a lot of care and experimentation to verify that it was cross culturally relevant, and that it was rooted in the same essence and principles as OST so that using both methods had a congruency. We use WPPF for meetings with leaders/sponsors for planning, we use it for storytelling and other preliminary work before the OST meeting, and we use it for follow up meetings after the OST…for sponsors/leaders to debrief after the OST (they are sometimes overwhelmed by the quality and quantity of what was generated in the OST as it supersedes their expectations), and we use it for some peer to peer accountability meetings in the months that follow the OST meeting. I have learned over time the critical role of the leaders…they open the space in their organizations for highly participatory meetings and I respect their courage. They need special support before and after these meetings as they are traversing into unknown territory, into more expanded possibility thinking, and they also discover arenas in which they personally need more capacity development to sustain leading a flexible, agile, and emergent organization. And some years ago, after many years of working with WPPF and OST meetings in tandem with each other, our team made had an experience that left us unsatisfied. We were engaged in designing and facilitating a five day process. We had a mixture of presentation in the mornings, followed by either a WPPF or an OST meeting for the afternoon. Some good things happened, yet for us it felt very disjointed. It didn’t have sufficient flow. After analyzing what we experienced, and how our client could have had a better experience, we realized that the five day process as a whole needed a container. We recognized that having OST as the container was not going to work, as some parts of the process needed to be more guided. We experimented with using WPPF as the five day container, into which we set aside different periods in which we would have an OST meeting…usually building in no less than two, and often three OST meetings in a five day period. It worked exceptionally well. We now use WPPF as the container for all of our OST meetings no matter what length, allowing us to create a seamlessness for the people involved, to shift from the OST meeting into prioritizing/action planning, and making the most of what the OST offers for the purpose of the daily life of the business or other organization. It is my belief that what you are attempting to do with OpenSpace Agility has some parallels to what we were working on over time in our own rich learning and experience journey. Kind regards, Birgitt Birgitt Williams President & Senior Consultant of Dalar International Consultancy, Inc. <http://www.dalarinternational.com/> http://www.dalarinternational.com Co-founder of the Extraordinary Leadership Network <http://www.extraordinaryleadershipnetwork.com/> http://www.extraordinaryleadershipnetwork.com Co-founder of the Genuine Contact™program and author of The Genuine Contact Way: Nourishing a Culture of Leadership <http://www.genuinecontactway.com/> http://www.genuinecontactway.com Co-owner of the Genuine Contact Co-owners Group Ltd. <http://www.genuinecontact.net/> http://www.genuinecontact.net Supporting leadership development for leading in a culture requiring agility and flexibility in a performance environment of constant change. Leadership development at your own pace? Become a member of the Extraordinary Leadership Network <http://www.extraordinaryleadershipnetwork.com/> http://www.extraordinaryleadershipnetwork.com to participate in an online leadership development program designed to increase your leadership skills and capacity. PO Box 19373, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA 27619 phone: 1-919-522-7750 From: Rolf Schneidereit [mailto:schneider...@gut-moderiert.de] Sent: Monday, March 07, 2016 4:24 AM To: Mark Sheffield; World wide Open Space Technology email list Cc: Birgitt Williams Subject: Re: [OSList] OpenSpace Agility: How Agile can be successful. First Workshop in Germany, June from 13th to 15th Hi Birgitt, Thank you for your invitation to an exploration of the OpenSpace Agility concept. In the very first moment I was a little bit scared about your disagreement and your definition of this as holistic and that as reductionist. Perhaps it is because that in my experience Open Space and World Cafe are not "holistic“ per se. It seems to me that it depends more on the mindset and the attitude of those hosting, and the commitment of the callers and leaders. Both can result in a more holistic or in a more reductionist frame. Similar seems to me with agile. How agile practices unfold depend on the mindset and the commitment. I’m wondering what has formed your belief, that agile is routed in a "reductionist perspective?" If I take the "Agile Manifesto“ (for example see here: http://openspaceagility.com/big-picture/agile-manifesto/) as the deepest root of agile, I can’t see this perspective in it. I agree with how Harrison Owen put it: "...being Agile“ is simply being fully, consciously, intentionally self organizing” Where do I see the limitations? In OST: So far I have experienced it as not a framework to organize the daily and weekly work of small teams (sub-systems). But we have to get the work done (for example after a OS we create new ideas and initiatives). Limitations of agile: It’s not a container for the whole system. And normally it’s enacted not by the people who have to work in the new agile way, and this is what causes a lot of resistance. The promise of OpenSpace Agility is to allow all members/teams of the system to find a way to self-organize their own way to agile. "If it's about us, don't do it without us“. The periodic OS events offer the space to give the power back to the people who have to do the work. I agree, we’re in our infancy and what do we really know? We have to know that we’re not knowing. To keep open for new learnings. I believe that OSA offers new learnings - perhaps also learnings on our assumptions about holistic and reductionist frames. Warm regards Rolf Am 06.03.2016/ Kw09 um 20:37 schrieb Mark Sheffield via OSList <oslist@lists.openspacetech.org>: Birgitt - Thank you for your curiosity about combining Open Space with Agility. I offer my perspective as a co-author of the OpenSpace Agility Handbook. One way of combining Open Space and Agility is to hold an Open Space event whose theme is about Agile principles and practices, or about how well the attendees are applying Agility in their daily work. I have gained great insights and understanding from participating in this kind of event. Another way is to preface a period of experimentation with an Open Space event and then follow the experimentation period with another Open Space event. During the initial event the most important discussions and actions related to the theme emerge. Those actions serve to guide the period of experimentation, which could be deterministic or not. The following Open Space is a time to reflect on what has happened since the initial event and to figure out what to do next. This is the Prime/OS approach, which OpenSpace Agility applies to an Agile transformation or journey. Open Space bookends around a period of experimentation serve to enhance the learning rather than create dissonance - because of the power of Open Space, which I do not fully understand. Open Space and Agile are about self-organization. Unfortunately many organizations force Agile practices. Attempting to force self-organization makes little sense and seldom works. OpenSpace Agility uses Open Space to empower the members of the organization to self-organize around experimenting with Agile principles and practices and with whether and how to implement them in ways that provide value for the organization. And yes, it is critical for the leaders to support the Open Space plus Agile experience, preferably by becoming active participants. Sincerely, Mark Sheffield On Mar 5, 2016, at 8:54 AM, Birgitt Williams via OSList < <mailto:oslist@lists.openspacetech.org> oslist@lists.openspacetech.org> wrote: Hi Thomas…and colleagues who are following this thread, I hope you are open to having an exploration on this list about your concept of OpenSpace Agility and the offer you are creating. I see that you are a Art of Hosting professional, so I assume you have explored a lot about openness, spirit, holistic approach, and the essence behind inviting and engaging participation. And from your exploration, you have your own unique conclusions, as do we each from our personal reflections and contemplations as social scientists. I see that you say that you assume we know the power of Open Space, World Café and other approaches. I don’t agree with that assumption and I choose to speak up because when someone assumes that ‘we’ believe something, I think silence is a form of agreement. I suggest we are only in our infancy in understanding the power of these approaches and there is so much more to learn. I am curious about what you believe the power is. I see that you say that you assume we know the limitations of these methods in the daily work of an organization. Again, I don’t agree with that assumption as applying to myself. I am curious about what you believe the limitations are. I have experienced methods such as Open Space, World Café etc to be rooted in a holistic perspective. I have experienced Lean, Kanban, Scrum and other related methods to be rooted in a reductionist perspective. Each has its place and its usefulness based on the business goal. I am curious about how you are bridging the mix of something that is holistic in nature, to something that is reductionist in nature. I assume this bridging is part of your thinking so that there is not cognitive dissonance for the people involved. I am also curious about the plan to increase the capacity of leadership to cope with this mix. I look forward to your answers. Kind regards, Birgitt Birgitt Williams President & Senior Consultant of Dalar International Consultancy, Inc. <http://www.dalarinternational.com/> http://www.dalarinternational.com Co-founder of the Extraordinary Leadership Network <http://www.extraordinaryleadershipnetwork.com/> http://www.extraordinaryleadershipnetwork.com Co-founder of the Genuine Contact™program and author of The Genuine Contact Way: Nourishing a Culture of Leadership <http://www.genuinecontactway.com/> http://www.genuinecontactway.com Co-owner of the Genuine Contact Co-owners Group Ltd. <http://www.genuinecontact.net/> http://www.genuinecontact.net Supporting leadership development for leading in a culture requiring agility and flexibility in a performance environment of constant change. Leadership development at your own pace? Become a member of the Extraordinary Leadership Network <http://www.extraordinaryleadershipnetwork.com/> http://www.extraordinaryleadershipnetwork.com to participate in an online leadership development program designed to increase your leadership skills and capacity. PO Box 19373, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA 27619 phone: 1-919-522-7750 From: OSList [ <mailto:oslist-boun...@lists.openspacetech.org> mailto:oslist-boun...@lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Jäger via OSList Sent: Friday, March 04, 2016 1:40 PM To: <mailto:oslist@lists.openspacetech.org> oslist@lists.openspacetech.org Subject: [OSList] OpenSpace Agility: How Agile can be successful. First Workshop in Germany, June from 13th to 15th Hello everyone! We would like to invite you to a new framework for organizational change: OpenSpace Agility, made of OpenSpace and agile methods. „Now, as long as I have known about Agile, Scrum, etc. – it has been clear to me that „being Agile“ is simply being fully, consciously, intentionally self organizing. That is total High Performance. And Open Space happens to be (a) fast track to get „there“. Not by doing something unique, special, or weird … but simply by being what we already are. Self organizing.“ Harrison Owen Lean, Kanban, Scrum … all these young methods indicates the need for lean and fast processes. On the other hand we know the power of Open Space, World Café and other approaches, but also their limitations in the daily work of an organization. Daniel Mezick, the pioneer of OpenSpace Agility found a way to combine the strengths of both approaches. „OpenSpace Agility works for one simple reason: it generates extremely high levels of engagement across your entire organization. This engagement is essential to the success of your program and no other method generates more engagement than the OpenSpace Agility method.” Daniel Mezick We’re happy to bring Daniel Mezick for the first time to Germany in June this year, where he will teach us the concept and methods of OpenSpace Agility (in english). Who is invited: - Leaders - Scrumteams, ProductOwners and ScrumMasters - People from HR department - (AoH)Hosts, Facilitators and Consultants If you’re looking for a framework which allows you to combine the Art of Hosting approach with Agile, have a look at these websites: - <http://www.openspaceagility.de/> www.openspaceagility.de (in german) - <http://www.openspaceagility.com/> www.openspaceagility.com We would be happy to meet you in Munich from June, 13th to 15th Thomas Jäger, Caroline Rennie and Rolf Schneidereit on behalf of the Hosting team Thomas Jäger Art of Hosting Praktizierender Certified Professional Scrum Master (PSM I) naturalconsult Brunnwartsweg 2 82031 Grünwald <mailto:thomas.jae...@naturalconsult.de> thomas.jae...@naturalconsult.de <http://www.diegastgeber.eu/> www.DieGastgeber.eu <http://openspaceagility.de/> openspaceagility.de <x-msg://10/www.artofhosting-muenchen.org> www.artofhosting-muenchen.org Tel: +49-89-64 94 99 12 Fax: +49-89-64 94 99 13 Mobil: +49-173-9263743 *** <http://www.diegastgeber.eu/> DieGastgeber.eu – Der Blog zum Art of Hosting für den deutschsprachigen Raum *** *** <http://www.openspaceagilty.de/> OpenSpaceAgilty – das Training! Zum erstenmal in Deutschland vom 13. bis 15. Juni in München *** _____ No virus found in this message. 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