Agile Notes (No. 54)

Open Space Technology

Hello all! Welcome new subscribers! Thanks for joining us. We continue with Collaboration Explained by Jean Tabaka. This week we are jumping ahead to Chapter 16: Visioning, Retrospection, and Other Approaches. Warning: we’re gonna get a little freaky this week. :)

I first heard about Open Space from Lyssa Adkins’ Coaching Agile Teams which I have covered in depth starting here. Adkins referenced Chris Corrigan, specifically his Tao of Holding Space. Here is a great video of Chris Opening a Space.

This is some seriously next level stuff. Has anyone had any experience with Open Space? PLEASE share your experiences in the comments or with me directly or you can even guest post here.

I try to practice “mindfulness”. My practice is a combination of Stoicism/Buddhism/Breathing/Meditation. There is a lot of overlap between all of them. Open Space, in my opinion looks like god-mode facilitation based on mindfulness.

I don’t have any comments this week. No anecdotes. My intention this week is to simply highlight Open Space Technology’s approach to facilitation and see if anyone has experience with it. I want to know what it is like to go through one of these sessions either as a participant or a facilitator. And “facilitator” seems like a woefully inadequate word for someone that can Open and Hold Space (which is the hard part).

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