What is an Open Space?
It is a way to facilitate an unconference, created twenty years ago by Owen Harrison, who wanted to develop a facilitated, face-to-face, and participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose.
The term “unconference” has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees and sponsored presentations. Open Space works best when there are multiple points of view in the room, even outright conflict, which means the theme must be neutral to draw people from all camps, otherwise it’s just a mutual admiration society!
There are 4 principles and 1 Law when we gather in an open space.
The Four Principles of Open Space:
- Whoever comes is the right people!
- Whenever it starts is the right time.
- Whatever happens is the only thing that could have!
- When it’s over, it’s over
The law of mobility:
If you find yourself neither learning nor contributing, MOVE ON!
The 4 principles and the Law of Mobility mean that you are free to attend the sessions you signed up for, or not... sometimes the best session happens in the coffee area, which is intentionally set up to invite conversation!
We’ve heard Regis say: “ask the audience, it’s never wrong!”. OpenSpace harnesses the wisdom of crowds and simply gives permission to create and act back to the crowd. Hurray!
A 3-minute intro to Open Space
Open Space format
The facilitator helps the group collaboratively create an agenda - anyone can stand up and name the topic they want to discuss... and in about an hour the group will organise the topics into a schedule on the wall and sign up for items they like. And now they are ready!
The rest of the day is run by the participants - they start their respective sessions and bring notes back to the facilitator, who photographs or collates them or helps them enter their notes in a wiki... so that participants can have a record of all sessions by the next day!
It’s amazing the connections that get made - simply because people follow their passions. Likeminded people meet and spawn new ideas, plans, business relationships... it’s wonderful to watch, and memorable every time.
At the closing circle, participants are invited to share their reflections - what will be different for them, going forward from this event? OpenSpace is simply a jumping-off point... it galvanizes groups to resolve long-standing issues or move into new avenues of action.