Designing for OPEN SPACE (and other large group facilitation methods)
by Chris Corrigan

Yesterday some very experienced Open Space Technology facilitators convened a session on Qiqochat to talk about how to get the “right” theme for an Open Space. My old friend Thomas Herrmann called the session and I’ve been reading the notes, which were posted publicly on the OSLIST. 

There is so much insight here. What they have grappled with is a perennial question for large group process facilitators. When you are choosing a question or a theme and crafting an invitation for these kinds of meetings the attractor has to be strong enough to catalyze engagement all over the room, but not so tight that you limit emergence. You are, in the parlance of complexity and dialogue, using a constraint to catalyze a container, the constraint in this case being an attractor.

This is critical work and essential to the success of a large group intervention because once the group is off and running, as a facilitator you don’t have much latitude to shift the course of things. I spend literally days working with teams on invitations, invitation processes and questions and discerning the real conversation before we get into the room. It never gets old.

Four key points stood out for me in the conversation. Here they are with some of my reflections.

Large group methods defy control. That’s a feature. That’s what makes them so powerful for confronting emergent problems and creating a container of time and space for a group to discover surprises. These surprises aren’t always easy to deal with, so it is important to creating a strong architecture before and after the event which can activate the energy of participation and support the momentum of the work…… 

……Read more detail from this post on Chris’s blog HERE

• Updated Open Space Resources HERE

• Open Space and Leadership HERE