Open Space in the corporate world

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Comment by Heidi Nobantu Saul on January 12, 2011 at 8:50pm

Just posted an Invitation to OSonOS San Francisco 2011 - an event I'm co-hosting with Lisa Heft. I'm looking forward to participating in some sessions focused on use of OST in the Corporate World!  For Event details see the Event Section on the Main Page.

Comment by Deborah Maarek on May 4, 2010 at 9:37pm

Hello, we organize an OST for business people
When: 3 (evening) and 4 of June 2010
Where: Bordeaux, France
The OST is in French.... Invitation is following!
Regards,
Déborah

Bonjour,

Les 3(soir) et 4 juin prochain nous avons le plaisir de co-organiser à Bordeaux avec l'association Les Entreprises Humaines et le mouvement Colibris (initié par Pierre Rabhi) un forum ouvert sur le thème :
"Construire ensemble des modèles entrepreneuriaux au service de l'humain et de la nature".

Cet événement s'adresse aux entrepreneurs, dirigeants, facilitateurs de transition convaincus que l'évolution du système économique est nécessaire pour faire face aux enjeux écologiques et sociaux actuels, et souhaitant rencontrer d'autre entrepreneurs pour co-créer de nouveaux modèles au service de l'humain et de la nature.

Nous animerons cette rencontre avec la méthode participative Forum ouvert qui permettra aux participants de dresser eux-même l'ordre du jour, faire équipe avec d'autres personnes qui ont à coeur les même sujets et de mettre à contribution les idées et expériences de chacun dans un climat de créativité, de respect et de responsabilité.

Information et inscription : http://leh-colibris.aggelos.fr/newsletter/20100422/

Merci de diffuser cette information auprès des personnes de votre entourage susceptibles d'être intéressées.

Bien cordialement,

Comment by Christine Whitney Sanchez on November 22, 2009 at 6:22pm

I have had the privilege of opening the space in a variety of corporate settings. One of my favorites was at Northrop Grumman (aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding). Their Learning and Development folks had just merged what had previously been 8 distinct groups supporting 8 different business into one group that supports the entire enterprise. We used a combination of Appreciative Inquiry, World Café and Open Space. The desired outcome from this work was to unify the cultures and functions of the L&D group. What I remember most, during the closing circle of the Open Space for Learn1NG, was the skeptical fellow who said, “I didn’t think this would work with our group because we are so used to a linear path. But now I know that we didn’t just unify – we became a tribe!”

Comment by Harold Shinsato on November 21, 2009 at 7:33pm

Someone from Salesforce.com gave a 90 minute session teaching the concept of the World Café using the Word Café itself at the Agile 2009 conference in Chicago this year. The theme was "improving our dialogs". I really enjoyed it, and see it as a pretty easy way to start dialog about dialog in a corporate setting. Not something that is so easy to do with OST. I really enjoyed the mini-TWC, though I didn't find it as powerful as a good 1/2 day of OST - but to be fair, I've not experienced a 1/2 day of TWC.

Comment by Dennis Dougherty on November 21, 2009 at 6:55pm

We have practiced The World Cafe in our company since 2004. TWC is a great dialogue technology for building company culture and vision. From this OST seems inviting to be the next step to translate our culture's passion and vision to product or service or value creation for our customers. I can see individual and organizational capacity building being a side benefit by deploying OST.

Comment by Suzanne Daigle on November 20, 2009 at 1:39am

Very interested in this topic! Since being introduced to Open Space last April and having lived in the corporate world my entire career I immediately recognized its enormous potential and impact. I have facilitated about 5 to 6 Open Spaces in public or community forums to test my intuition and have also attended a number of Open Spaces as a participant. Having been directly involved in a host of change programs, consulting initiatives, conferences, strategic planning sessions, acquisitions, etc. I know the enormous potential of Open Space. In the next three to four months, I plan to spend serious time creating a language around the benefits of engagement through Open Space, a language that business utilizes and is familiar with. The Challenge with Open Space is that people do not understand it until they experience it. Also it requires quality pre-work and anticipating culture changes that emerge and talking about it early on. Would love to hear from others on this in line with Harold's question.

Comment by Harold Shinsato on November 19, 2009 at 4:47am

Any experience reports? I held an open space for a technology team at Business Objects. We had 40 participants for 1/2 a day. There were challenges with managers wanting to reduce the time or to take advantage of the time to schedule their own meetings - so some people were kept away - but those who participated really enjoyed it.

Business Objects was acquired by SAP, and SAP has some big plans for change. Have anyone had experiences encouraging Open Space into existing top down style change initiatives?