Hi Greg and Welcome! I've done a number of these one-day-with-convergence recently. I don't usually attempt to get the reports into the hands of the participants before the convergence activity. I invite the convenors, in addition to their report (which gets printed and put up on the newswall for folks to read throughout the day)to summarize the three key points from their conversation on a large piece of flip chart paper and put it up in a gallery.
There is an energy issue to be sure: folks are usually really deep and also tired by the end of the third conversation. I have found that taking a 15 minute break for folks to gas up, stretch, read the gallery and finish off their notes is helpful and not too long. I then reconvene the circle and introduce the concept of convergence/action planning--as not a ranking of importance--all of the topics are important or they wouldn't have come up--but rather an indication of the passion in the room. This follows the idea that nothing important ever got done if nobody cared about it--importance doesn't equal mattering. This is really helpful for the leadership--as they get a very clear picture of where the energy in the organization lies. I like to use the sticky dot method for convergence. People find it fun--it brings out the kid in everybody--who doesn't like stickers??? It changes the energy by getting everybody up and moving around. I give everyone ten to fifteen sticky dots. The only rule is that they can't put all 10 or 15 dots on one topic. I invite them to put the dots on the gallery notes rather than the topic sheets--this seems to help folks get a better sense of what the topics were really about. Once all the dots are on, we sit back in the circle and look at what has emerged. There are usually about five topics that really stand out as the biggies and then a lot of the others are usually related to one of the big five. Together we group (converge) the topics into their larger areas. This process takes about 45 minutes total including the break. I then invite topic champions for the hot five or so topics to step forward and convene a quick 15 minute action planning session to document the very next step for each topic (can be as simple as compiling a list of who's interested, how they will stay in touch, and when they will meet next). I find this extra step really helpful in grounding the OS. We reconvene, folks give a lightening report in so everyone knows how to get connected to other groups they might be interested in and then we do a lightening round closing circle. Using a talking object, I invite each person to speak one word or one phrase or one sentence that captures what they learned, or what they noticed, or what moved them, or what challenged them during the day. I usually get the proceedings to the sponsors digitally for distribution the following day. (You could distribute the books as folks leave if you have been able to pull off the Kinko's thing. If you try this, be kind to yourself and have some skilled helpers with you in the newsroom to let you focus on holding the space.) This has worked well for everyone I have used it with so far. One of the things I notice with this type of day, is that the breathing spaces present in a longer OS are missing. In order to create the time for the convergence/action planning, the time slots are often shortened to one-hour and fifteen minutes and this tends to have folks moving directly from one conversation to the next, without milling and swirling back in the centre. I want to acknowledge all of those who contributed their knowledge and experience that I have learned from: particularly Chris Corrigan, Michael Herman, Peggy Holman, and Lisa Heft. Their contributions in the list archives and to the resources at Open Space World helped me immensely in creating this format. I have played with and tweaked this design a fair bit, and this is what has worked best for me so far in what is admittedly a bit of a stretch for the one-day format. Best of luck! Have fun! And just keep breathing! Cheers, Wendy -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Greg Vaughan Sent: July 24, 2006 4:29 PM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: What to do while the proceedings are being printed? Hi All, New member here, so treat me kindly. I'll be conducting a one-day open space for a fire department. We are expecting about 100 participants. I need some advice on two issues: 1) I'm curious to know what you consider the best approach for getting the proceedings book printed in the shortest time, and what to do with folks while that happens. I'm a bit worried about 100 task-oriented firefighters hanging out for 30 minutes while Kinko's prints the books. Do we just consider this a break and let whatever happens happen? Or, do we structure an activity? 2) We'd like to have participants do a high-level ranking of the report topics and recommendations so the leadership team has some idea about what the group considerss to be key issues and high priorities. So, folks have already been on a 30 minute break waiting for the books, and now need another block of time to review them. I'm worried about a substantial drop in energy level at this point late in the day. Any suggestions, including to chill? Thanks for your help. Greg Vaughan * * ========================================================== 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 -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. 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