I love talking about this stuff, and David Giard gave me the opportunity at the CodeMash 2010 conference.
http://technologyandfriends.com/archive/2010/02/01/tf0067.aspx
Archive for the ‘Open Space’ Category
I get to facilitate an Open Space in my own home town! Woohoo!
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It was sad for me – I couldn’t do it last year because I was already booked for another Open Space. I’m delighted that they’ve invited me again this year, and that I’m available. This is my people!
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The Unconference: Where Geeks JIT Together
Steven M List
More collaboration and less imposed structure. That’s where technology is leading us. Whether it’s Wikipedia’s collaborative bottom-up organization or the Unconference’s on-the-fly topic and presentation planning, the trend is clearly about less prescription and more participation.
Just a few years ago, there were no Unconferences, Open Spaces, BarCamp, FOO Camp, or DemoCamp. So why does it seem like today there’s another Unconference or Open Space every other week? What’s so compelling about geeky, nerdy, tech folks getting together just to talk about whatever’s on their minds?
I just had to share – coming out in the May issue of MSDN magazine.
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for me, this event exemplified some of the best things about Open Space events.
It was a “typical” weekend event – we opened and created the agenda on Friday evening, sessions all day Saturday, and sessions and closing on Sunday.
The great majority of the 100 participants had never attended an Open Space before, mostly had no clue what it was about, and many came in skeptical. I love it when they start out skeptical. 
I was a bit worried (as always) that there wouldn’t be enough topics. Was I ever wrong to worry! We had more overflow than any other event I’ve facilitated. The newbies got the idea quickly and the topics kept on flowing.
The energy was outstanding. Once things got rolling, the bumblebees were pollinating, the butterflies were flitting, and the conversations moved up and down the halls.
Topics spanned everything from how to expand the community to programming in F# to discussing BDD (and TDD and DDDD).
For me, the best part was, as usual, the closing circle.
The words I heard included “open” and “respect” and “sharing” and “wow”. The skeptical had become the converted.
On top of all of that, this group was one of the most eager and effective in not only getting proceedings up on their wiki, but also in sharing videos and far more information than just came out of the event. Plus the amount of tweeting that went on and the people who were connecting and watching streaming video and tweets around the world, was impressive.
It was a joy and a delight to be allowed to facilitate this event, and to share in the energy and excitement.
Suh-weet!
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Each new Open Space and variation on Open Space is a learning opportunity. ITARC Atlanta was no exception. Of course, there was the added note that in order to do ITARC Atlanta, I had to pass on ALT.NET Seattle. I’ll come back to that.
ITARC Atlanta was another hybrid event – a day of workshops, a day and a half of presentations (including me ), and a half day of Open Space.
Presenting: Facilitation Patterns and Antipatterns
I presented my new-and-improved version of Facilitation Patterns and Antipatterns (PDF). I’d finished reading Presentation Zen (also see Garr Reynolds’s blog of the same name), completely revamped the visual aspect of the presentation, reordered it to make it flow better (thanks to valuable input from Patrick Kua and Glenn Kapetansky of ThoughtWorks), and was all ready to wow ‘em. I started off, got through the first 4 – 5 slides, and one of the attendees raised his hand to ask a question. And that’s the way it went – one or two or three slides, then another question. Somehow, I made it through all my slides (although very briefly, for some), as well as answering questions and carrying on some very interesting exchanges with the participants (who shifted from attendees to participants very rapidly ). Needless to say, I came away with fodder for some new antipatterns and patterns.
Embedded Open Space
There is a pattern emerging in the technology and technology-related events I’ve been involved with. I’m referring to it as “embedded open space.” At these events, the organizers embrace the ideas both of Open Space Technology (OST) and eyes-front presentations. The MDCs were an example of this, as was Microsoft PDC – at these events, they tried to do it in parallel (as my twitter friends (”tweeps”) say, FAIL). Folks in the OST community will assure you that parallel doesn’t work. There is no sense of community, no consistent body of people who share commitment, and competition between the two different parallel events.
At KaizenConf and ALT.NET Seattle, they were structured to have workshops first, followed by “pure” Open Space – sequential.
At the Microsoft Strategic Architect Forum (September 2008, San Francisco), it was structured as split days – mornings were presentations, afternoons were Open Space.
ITARC Atlanta was done as a sequential – first they did workshops, then they did presentations, and finally on the last afternoon we did an Open Space. There was good and bad about this. As always, a substantial number of the participants had never been to or heard of Open Space Technology. They had some loose preconceptions, but nothing that matched to reality.
The context was that this was Friday afternoon at the end of a very valuable conference, it was raining and chilly in Atlanta, and many people didn’t stay for the Open Space. I’m guessing, and would say that their thinking was something like “I don’t know what this is – I can stay for what might be a waste of time, or start my weekend early.” Out of around 160 people who attended the whole event, about 40 stayed for the Open Space.
As always, those who stayed were surprised (”Be prepared to be surprised!“) and got way more out of it than they expected.
The organizers were Joseph DeCarlo of Turner and Paul Preiss, founder and CEO of IASA. Joe and I have known each other for about a year, and Joe had been at the Microsoft Strategic Architect Forum, which was his first experience of Open Space. He became a convert, and was the driving force behind adding OST to the ITARC. Paul was a skeptic, and therefore wanted to limit what he saw as an experiment. I’m happy to say that Paul is now a believer, too. 
.
Passing on ALT.NET Seattle
I got my start as an Open Space Facilitator at the first ALT.NET Open Space in Austin in 2007. It was a wonderful experience for me, and formed a bond between the ALT.NET community (and the individuals that comprise it) and me. I frequently think of them as “my family” or even “my chldren”. It’s a special relationship, both because of the community and because of the blend of technology and OST and agile that occurs there, all of which delight me.
I facilitated last year’s Seattle ALT.NET Open Space, and it was good.
We had talked about this year’s, but a date had not been set when I was invited to ITARC Atlanta.
When Glenn Block contacted me about this year’s event, I learned that it was to begin on Friday evening, February 27. That was when I would be finishing up ITARC Atlanta. Needless to say, there was no way to be in Seattle to open the conference. Glenn asked if it would work for them to open and create the agenda without me, and then have me arrive on Saturday morning. Ignoring the logistics of taking a red-eye to get to Seattle, I still had to say no. The facilitator must be there for the opening – it’s part of the spirit of the event.
After considering his options, Glenn got Diana Larsen to come and facilitate. I was both delighted and dismayed. Delighted because Diana is a friend and a highly experienced and skilled Open Space Facilitator, so I knew she would take proper care of my family. Dismayed because I feared “what if they like her better?!?!?!?!” After all, I have facilitated most of the major ALT.NET events in North America, and most of them have never experienced anyone but me. What if…?
Having survived my attack of insecurity and anxiety, I’m delighted to say that Diana was as good as expected, and my family still loves me nonetheless.
One of my favorite comments was this: “I’d say that Diana embodies ceremony, while you embody essence.” I’m still not quite sure what it means, but I like it!
Next time, hopefully they’ll pick a date farther in advance so I can commit.
I’m planning on facilitating ALT.NET Houston in April, unless I go to China. Really.
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This is a technique that I got from the marvelous book Participatory Workshops: A Sourcebook of 21 Sets of Ideas and Activities
Quoted from the book:
An intense and good experience to come near the end**. This enables participants to share and receive advice on real problems and opportunities. It reinforces solidarity and mutual support. It can also surprise people with their own ability to counsel others.
You need four-six pairs of chairs, facing each other, arranged in a circle. As many circles of pairs of chairs as fit the number taking part. Allow ten minutes for briefing and reflection, plus:
4 pairs of chairs – 25-30 minutes
5 paris of chairs – 30-35 minutes
6 pairs of chairs – 35-40 minutes
- Ask participants to reflect and choose a problem or opportunity they face or will face. This can be in their work and/or when they return to their institutions, or be any personal problem on which they would like advice. Stress that everything that passes is in confidence between friends.
- Ask everyone to sit in a chair, any chair. Those on the inner ring are counsellors, and those on the outer ring their clients. There are three minutes only for each round of advice, roughly one minute for posing the problem, and two minutes for the advice.
- After two minutes warn that only one minute is left. After three minutes, all the outer ring (clients) move one seat in the same direction. The inner ring (counsellors) stays put. Repeat the procedure.
- When the outer ring has gone round, counsellors and clients swap seats. The process is repeated with the roles changed.
Tips and Options
- Encourage note-taking, otherwise much will be forgotten. Notes can be taken on the run, or two minutes or so can be set aside at the end of each full circuit for making a personal record.
- It may be wise to place people from the same organization or department into different clusters of chairs.
- If numbers do not fit, facilitators can take part, or volunteers can sit out and observe, or an extra pair of chairs can be added to one or more circles (in which case stop the bigger circles when the smaller circles have finished their round).
- Write down the times when change-overs must take place. (Otherwise it is easy to mess up the timing).
Source: Participatory Learning and Action: A Trainer’s Guide citing Alan Margolis, personal communication.
* Robert Chambers is a research associate of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, England. He is one of the world’s most influential proponents of participatory development. His other books include “Whose Reality Counts?”, and “Challenging the Professions.”
** While Chambers suggests this for the end, I think that this can effectively be used as part of a progressive approach to larger meetings. For instance, start with Open Space, then integrate activities like The World Café and the Margolis Wheel to refine communication and understanding.
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My next scheduled event is ITARC Atlanta February 25 – 27. I’ll be doing double-duty, both facilitating an Open Space and presenting my session on Facilitation Patterns and Antipatterns.
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First, since I would wonder and will therefore assume that you do too…
“Community Courtyard” is the name that Bob Familiar of Microsoft came up with to describe the space – physical and mental – that is set aside at an event for self-organizing, community-driven discussions. Bob came up with the name because I told him “You may not call it Open Space, because it is not Open Space and if you call it Open Space people will be angry with Microsoft for ‘doing it again’!”
This discussion occurred at the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles in October, 2008 where I was “facilitating” an “Open Space” that should have been called a “Community Courtyard”. We were experimenting with the idea of providing a space and a framework for supporting self-organizing, community-driven discussion running in parallel with an event filled with stand-up, eyes-front presentations, labs, workshops, and other stuff that was the real reason that people were there.
At the PDC, it was okay, but not a big success. There was nothing wrong with it – it just didn’t get used much. And it wasn’t an Open Space.
So for the series of events called the MSDN Developer Conference (MDC), we called it Community Courtyard. I kinda like the name. Well done, Bob!
We’ve done ten of them so far – the MDCs. There’s one more to go, in San Francisco.
I have participated in six of the ten, Alan Stevens has done two of them, and Microsoft staff have done a couple of them. They’ve been more or less successful. I’d have to say that there are a few key lessons to be learned, should anyone else out there want to try the same thing. Lessons particularly about holding a space like this in parallel with an … event.
- The speakers must come. If the speakers come to the CC, the attendees will come. At the end of each presentation, the speaker should say “I’ll be going to the CC after this session. If you’d like to talk more about the material, please join me there.” This will draw people into the space, stir up some energy there, and maybe lead to unexpected results.
- There must be some way for the participants to communicate with each other, if they want to have a conversation. We tried word of mouth, whiteboards, and Twitter. Unfortunately, those don’t work well in these kinds of situations. At the PDC, we had the topics proposed by attendees displayed on a plasma TV screen – that worked MUCH better. At some of the MDCs, there was no wireless, or no mobile phone service, so Twitter and other electronic media didn’t work. There must be some way for (a) attendees to propose discussion topics and (b) other attendees to know what they are.
- Holding a Tweetup works! In Orlando, Joe (sorry, Joe, I don’t remember your last name) from Microsoft called a Tweetup. Fortunately there was wi-fi and mobile service, and a sizable group of people showed up. It led to some community discussions, including one about Open Space!
The main lesson for me, though, which other members of the Open Space community have expressed, is that you can’t do an Open Space in parallel with something else. You can do it before, after, or even as split days (half presentations, half Open Space). But you can’t effectively do it in parallel, because you can’t form the kind of community that is at the heart of Open Space events.
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Lots of terms get tossed around: Open Space Technology, open spaces, unconference, bar camp, demo camp, product camp, foo camp,…
I’d argue that all of these “unconference” approaches derive from the work done by Harrison Owen, who wrote the book “Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide”.
In that book, he describes the process of coming together, creating the agenda, holding time and space, self-organizing, holding discussions, and closing. Yes, there’s more, but those are some of the key aspects of Open Space Technology. For me, when I say Open Space, or write it, it is (a) capitalized, recognizing that it is a proper name, and (b) refers to the process originated by Harrison Owen.
Recently, I’ve seen and heard people talking about “open spaces” as if there is some definition of that, and clearly implying that they are confusing Open Space Technology (OST) with something else. That something else seems to be the misconception that there is no structure or planning to OST, and that any time you provide an open space, chairs, and a whiteboard or two, you have “open spaces”.
I admit that this frustrates me, because it diluates and confuses something that I think is wonderful and powerful. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get the idea across so that others will grok it.
Of course, the simplest thing is to read the book or the entry on Wikipedia. Sadly, most folks won’t do that.
Next is for people to experience a “real” Open Space. In my experience, not only do they get it then, but they also fall in love with it. Sadly, there are too many people who think they know what OST is about, but deliver some perverted or incomplete version of it that matches some internal model, but not the system that many of us love.
One of the things that brought this home to me was a comment by an acquaintance after I’d finished the closing circle at an Open Space:
- “I told a friend of mine that I was going to this open space thing. He told me he doesn’t like open space. I asked him if he’d ever been to one of Doc’s open spaces. He said no. I told him that he hadn’t been to an Open Space yet, in that case.”
While I’m proud that someone thinks that’s what it’s about – that it’s me being wonderful and so forth – I’m equally dismayed that my acquaintance hit on something important, but stated it in a way that takes away from OST and puts it on me.
Yes, I believe that the facilitator is important. We don’t do much, really, but what we do is important. What my acquaintance pointed out to me was something I had observed – a facilitator who doesn’t get it, who doesn’t understand that the event belongs to and is about the participants, who doesn’t set the stage for them to take that ownership and self-organize – that facilitator is violating the whole idea behind OST.
Sigh.
