Open Space Technology

In Open Space meetings, events and organizations, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance, such as: What is the strategy, group, organization or community that all stakeholders can support and work together to create?

Open Space works best when the work to be done is complex, the people and ideas involved are diverse, the passion for resolution are high, and the time to get it done was yesterday. It's been called passion bounded by responsibility, the energy of a good coffee break, intentional self-organization, spirit at work, chaos and creativity, evolution in organization, and a simple, powerful way to get people and organizations moving - when and where it's needed most. The stories and work plans woven in Open Space are generally more complex, more robust, more durable - and can move a great deal faster than expert- or management-driven designs.

There are only two mechanisms for OPEN SPACE: the Agenda Board and the Village Market Place. Each participant is invited to identify any issue or opportunity around the theme that they are passionately interested. They give it a short title on an A3 size piece of paper, indicating time and place, and post it on the wall. After every person who wants to, has posted their interests, the Village Market Place opens. All participants are invited to come to the wall and sign up for only those sessions - self-managed work groups - that appeal to them. When conflict of space or schedule arises, the delegates negotiate solutions while the rest of the group goes about its business. And nobody is in charge. Everybody is.

Each person who has identified an issue or opportunity and placed it on the Agenda Board, has, in so doing, elected to be the 'convenor' of a self-managed work group. Not the leader, expert, facilitator or controller! Their only responsibilities are to be present at the place and time indicated, and to see that someone in the group takes down notes of any important points discussed and any resolutions or action plans that emerge.

Those notes are fed into computers at the end of each session and put up on a "newsroom wall" for all to see. A full report of all proceedings is compiled at the end of the event and handed out to each participant.

The South African facilitators, Renaissance Business Associates, have twelve years of experience with OST and have used the process with great success not only in some of the country’s leading companies, but also in a number of conferences, both here and in Australia.

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