Open Space Technology (OST) is an event format used in meetings of 5 to 2,000 people, invented by Harrison Owen in 1985.
Participants create the agenda for themselves and facilitators lead and record the resulting discussions.
There’s a twist in this version with the inclusion of a process that gives the organizers a little more control over the agenda.
NASA scientists, engineers and technologists running an Open Space session in 2010 (source)
Download free slides... enter your email address at the bottom to get this team building activity in your inbox
Objectives
Outcomes
Download free slides... enter your email address at the bottom to get this team building activity in your inbox
HARRISON OWEN'S LAW
If at any time during your time here you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet, and go somewhere else.
When Would You Use It?
When is Open Space a bad idea?
Why Would You Use It?
Open Space is ‘participant driven’. This means your participants have more control than usual input over the process and outcomes. What you get for that loss of control is high-levels of ownership in the results.
If you are short on time in the preparation phase then OST will work well for you. You have to do very little process planning in the lead up because the participants do it for you on the day.
Resources Required
How much control do organizers have?
This twist in the process gives organizers a little more control over the agenda
Pre-Event Process (an optional twist)
This first phase is different from the traditional Open Space Technology process. If you want to go traditional just ignore this part.
- 1Email all your participants at least 2 weeks before the event telling asking them what burning questions they would like answered at the event.
- 2Collate and categorize your responses as they come in.
- 3Identify a short-list of questions that you plan to tackle on the day remembering they should contain high-levels of complexity, diversity, conflict and urgency for them to be effective (see the When Would You Use It section).
- 4Plot your questions into a schedule spanning your event. Each question should have at least a 1 hour slot allocated. These slots will likely end up being longer or shorter on the day. At this stage it's simply a guide to manage participant's expectations.
- 5Leave a few slots towards the end of the day free so you have the space to extend your timetable as the day plays out.
Start-of-the-day Process
If you’ve done the Pre-Event Process first...
- 1Gather your participants together and briefly explain how Open Space events work using Harrison Owen’s 1 Law and the Guiding Principles as appropriate. Traditionally you should do this with everyone in a circle around you but you don’t necessarily have to.
- 2Present the schedule for the event so participants can see which issues are being discussed when.
- 3Ask participants to spend 10 minutes thinking through if they have any other issues they’d like to raise.
- 4You then invite participants with extra/new issues to briefly explain it to the group.
- 5If there is a general agreement that the issue has enough support and passion invite the issue owner to add the issue to the schedule.
- 6Once all new issues have been discussed and added invite the participants to sign-up for the sessions they’re planning on attending (they are free to change their mind later if they want to).
- 7Your sessions start.
Start-of-the-day Process
If you’re following the traditional Open Space Process...
- 1Gather your participants together and briefly explain how Open Space events work using Harrison Owen’s 1 Law and the Guiding Principles as appropriate. Traditionally you should do this with everyone in a circle around you but you don’t necessarily have to.
- 2Ask participants to spend 10 minutes thinking through if they have any issues they’d like to raise.
- 3If there is a general agreement that the issue has enough support and passion behind it invite the issue owner to add the issue to the schedule.
- 4Once all issues have been added invite the participants to sign-up for the sessions they’re planning on attending (they are free to change their mind later if they want to).
- 5Your sessions start.
An example of an Open Space agenda
Process for a Session
- 1Each session should be a round group of chairs (no table in the middle) with preferably one facilitator to lead the discussion and a scribe on the flip-chart.
- 2A session starts with the issue owner welcoming and thanking the group for coming and then giving a description of the issue as they see it.
- 3The facilitator then leads the discussion inviting people to give their input at their request.
- 4The scribe records the discussion on flip chart paper making sure to mark Issues, Ideas, Questions (that can’t be answered today) & Actions. When a flip is finished they should tear it off and put it in the center of the circle or on a nearby wall for people in the group to see.
- 5Allow people to leave and arrive as they see fit though don’t allow them to interrupt or slow-down your progress. It is a new arrival’s responsibility to catch-up with the discussion using the flip chart outputs no matter how high up or important they are.
- 6When the issue looks like it has been covered and there are no more inputs coming from your group thank them for their time and invite them to join other groups if the session time is not over.
Guiding Principles
1) Whoever comes are the right people
This is to remind participants they don’t need top management or lots of people to get things done. The only people it’s important to have are those who feel passionately about the issue. And if they don’t come then they’re not passionate enough.
2) Whenever it starts is the right time
This is to remind participants that you are not late (or early for that matter) in discussing the issue at hand. Removing the feeling of anxiety allows the group to focus better.
3) Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
This is to remind participants that whatever comes out of the discussion is the right thing. Once it’s done, it’s done and the only direction to move now is forward.
4) When it’s over, it’s over (in this session)
This is to remind participants that once they feel the issue has been resolved they should move on to the next one. There’s no need to keep talking about the same topic just because there’s still time left in the session.
Secret Sauce
Free Download Files
Download Your Open Space Technology Slides (FREE)
Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a new team activity every couple of weeks & get your slides instantly.
Your twist takes the Open out of Open Space.
I respectfully disagree Eric. Everything is still 100% participant led with the ‘twist’ and therefore still open. The ‘twist’ is simply some pre-work on the agenda to appease the sponsor and to engage with the audience before the event.
For me that second feature is the most important and maybe I haven’t emphasised it above.
Often an audience coming to an event is unwilling or disengaged before they even arrive. Especially if the last 5 all-hands events have been designed and run poorly so they’ve left feeling dejected and flat. “Is this event going to be another waste of my time?” Negativity like that at the water cooler before the event spreads fast through your participants and you have little to no control over it.
The ‘twist’ works by showing them in advance that this event is going to be different. In effect it becomes a bit of a word-of-mouth PR tool for the design team that generates pre-event enthusiasm.
My background is change management and I’ve learned the earlier you can get your targets engaged in the process the higher your chance of success. Works in marketing too btw. And training.
Yes it’s more work for the design team before the event but, in my experience at least, the benefits are significant in creating a pre-event buzz and starting the day off with more energy
I think I’m with you Nick. The twist will provide a focus which can be beneficial. It needs to be carefully done though ‘cos in my experience, one of the great powers of OST is the surprises that can come out of the openness and the unexpected ideas that surface. I think you have allowed for this in making sure that there are spaces in the schedule for additional discussions. The other thing is that I would list the pre-identified topics in the market place for people to sign up to and then schedule – it may be that, even if they have been pre-identified, on the day, there is insufficient interest to justify a schedule slot.
Agreed David. Nice build about adding them to the market place rather than pre-scheduling them. Views do change in the run up to an event so topics can easily feel more or less important than they once were only a few days before.
I appreciate your support of more open approaches, but, as Eric mentions, in your pre-event process “Plot your questions into a schedule spanning your event. Each question should have at least a 1 hour slot allocated.”, you have indeed, unintentionally, constrained the opening of the space.
You have taken away the opportunity for the participants to own their agenda.
Of course, as an organiser, you may feel you have achieved a better outcome. Perhaps you feel that you needed to do it to justify your worth to your client. Perhaps you needed to feel you added some value.
But, you are no longer a facilitator and it is now your agenda and you who are deciding what is a more desirable outcome. The agenda is not open for those present, in the moment, to decide.
This space is less open than the true use of the technology would have created.
You can call this some other thing. Unconference, barcamp, etc. are variants where the organisers or “facilitators’ feel a need to impose a little more structure and a little of their ego into the event. Of course it’s mostly unintentional, but it’s still what’s happening.
Open Space Technology, it is not.
Please permit your ego to give it a different name, to avoid misinforming others.
Thanks for your input Harrison. I truly appreciate and welcome it. The twist is an optional step that you can apply if you (a) have a nervous / green sponsor (b) want to feel the need to engage the participants before the event to build anticipation and excitement before the event and (c) have the time because it’s a fair amount of extra work. ‘Optional’ is the keyword though so I’ve made some amendments to this part of the process to make it clearer. With or without the twist the agenda is still 100% participant led and they have the freedom on the day to change it if that is their desire. There is no opportunity for the sponsor, or indeed facilitator, to bend or shape the agenda with either. Personally I would always prefer to use OST as you designed it but given the choice of OST (with twist) and a more prescriptive format I would go for the open approach every time.
Hello Harrison – you raise some interesting points regarding Nick’s interpretation of OST. The key for me is that participants must be able to determine for themselves the objective(s) that underpin their collective endeavour (what you refer to as ‘agenda’). And that they are able to contribute to its fulfilment and hence ‘own’ the outcome. Now whether the agenda is formed and agreed as part of the event or prior to it, seems a moot point, so long as it is they – the participants – that do so. Hence I do not see Nick’s ‘Twist’ on OST as taking away the opportunity from participants to own their agenda. The facilitator remains just that – and neither determines the agenda, nor the outcome – but merely facilitates the process. This is in the spirit of OST. I don’t see ego necessarily playing a part here.
Nick. Thank you for sharing.
Pleasure Anthony
Thank you for sharing Nick. I am really looking forward to test this tool in January 2019.
Thank you for your generosity and for having an abundance mentality.
Well done!