See also
NepalConferenceSummary |
NepalConferenceJournal |
NepalConferencePhotos
Training Summary
On the afternoon of the first day, Michael Herman Opened the Space for working and learning together: "Welcome to Open Space. The best way to learn about Open Space is to DO it. The best way to love our future, is to create it for ourselves. And the best way to create the future, is with good friends. Look around the circle, follow me as I walk around, notice who's here, old friends and new… everyone passionate about the future of Nepal…" This was the first of four different Openings, for Discovering, Dreaming, Designing and Delivering the best possible future for Nepal.
In the course of the program, Open Space Technology was explained as the skillful and integrated practice of these techniques:
- Passion and Responsibility - what do you want and what are you willing to do about it?
- Invitation - one or more important issues, wrapped in a short story that says "Please join us... come help us... let us create something together... let us move together..."
- Circle - the structure of equality, equal position, equal voice, equal view. Even when resources and experience and official power is different, circle gives everyone equal security and Open Space gives everyone the same job: learn and contribute as much as you can.
- Bulletin Board - the fastest, simplest, and most open way to move information
- Marketplace - means we can have differences, and do different things, without being divided. It allows movement and self-direction, shopping and choosing. And it is the place of offering and contribution, bringing out our gifts, skills and resources.
- Breathing - the pulsation from big circle to breakouts, and back again. And then from meetings to everyday work and back again. This breathing is how the tools and techniques listed above become together a natural, ongoing practice.
- News - the results, documented in whatever language, report, song, skit, or other form that participants recognize as "real" and "results." Today's news becomes tomorrow's invitation, and the cycle continues.
- Life Force - we live in Open Space and fun, confusion, order, laughter, learning, conflict, healing, birthing and dying are all natural, allowed and acknowledged within it. Open Space is the invitation and cultivation of Life energies, rather than an imposition and attempt to control Life.
Appreciative Inquiry was presented as the positive cycle of four important stages of consideration:
- Discovery - means we can have differences, and do different things, without being divided. It allows movement and self-direction, shopping and choosing. And it is the place of offering and contribution, bringing out our gifts, skills and resources.
- Dream - the pulsation from big circle to breakouts, and back again. And then from meetings to everyday work and back again. This breathing is how the tools and techniques listed above become together a natural, ongoing practice.
- Design - the results, documented in whatever language, report, song, skit, or other form that participants recognize as "real" and "results." Today's news becomes tomorrow's invitation, and the cycle continues.
- Delivery - we live in Open Space and fun, confusion, order, laughter, learning, conflict, healing, birthing and dying are all natural, allowed and acknowledged within it. Open Space is the invitation and cultivation of Life, rather than an imposition and attempt to control Life.
Several ways to combine the two processes were explained, and the Four Principles and One Law of Open Space were humorously modified to reflect the practical union of the two methods.
The first four principles say: Whoever comes is the right people, whenever it starts is the right time, whatever happens is the only thing that could have and when it's over, it's over. In general, these add up to a generous acknowledgement of all the uncertainty and chaos that we live with all of the time. They are a welcome for spirit and surprise to show up on their own terms. And so to these we added: Whatever D you are doing is the right D.
Then, to the Law of Two Feet, which gives participants both the right and the responsibility to learn and contribute as much as they can, was extended: The Law of Two Feet and Four Ds. This new version invites and reminds everyone to use their two feet AND to make sure that they do all four Ds in the course of our four days -- to make sure they look for the good, think big beyond current limits and customary time frames, get practical about plans and designs, and leave here with individual immediate next step actions (no matter how small) that they can do and deliver.
In the end, it was recognized by everyone that these to approaches for positive participation and transformation work perfectly together. The Opening Invitation, Bulletin Board, Marketplace and News dimensions of Open Space perfectly align with the 4Ds of Appreciative Inquiry. Similarly, the Discovery and Dream stages are about Passion; the Design and Delivery stages about Responsibility. In this view, it is not possible to practice one approach without respecting the other.
For more information about AI and OST, please visit:
home