Open-space Technology - Ideal Initial Conditions

Ideal Initial Conditions

According to Open Space Technology: A User's Guide and other books by Harrison Owen, open space technology works best when these conditions are present:

1. A real issue of concern, that it is something worth talking about.
2. a high level of complexity, such that no single person or small group fully understands or can solve the issue
3. a high level of diversity, in terms of the skills and people required for a successful resolution
4. real or potential conflict, which implies that people genuinely care about the issue
5. a high level urgency, meaning the time for decisions and action was "yesterday"

He goes further to explain these as when we are not ready to do Open Space. When we are:

1. without a real business issue, nobody cares.
2. without complexity, there is really no reason to have a meeting (solve it!).
3. without diversity there is not sufficient richness in the points of view to achieve novel solutions.
4. without passion and conflict -- there is no juice to move things along.
5. without a real sense of urgency, all that wonderful passion loses focus and power.

Further, the recognition of these conditions by leadership typically implies some level of letting go of control and opening of invitation. In different ways and to varying degrees, leaders convening Open Space meetings acknowledge that they, personally, do not have "the answer" to whatever complex, urgent and important issue(s) must be addressed and they put out the call (invitation) to anyone in the organization or community who cares enough to attend a meeting and try to create a solution.

In a different text he talks about preconditions for open space

The essential preconditions are:

1. A relatively safe nutrient environment.
2. High levels of diversity and complexity in terms of the elements to be self-organized.
3. Living at the edge of chaos. Nothing will happen if everything is sitting like a lump.
4. An inner drive towards improvement. e.g. a cartoon atom wants to get together with other atoms to become a molecule.
5. Sparsity of connections.

Kaufmann is suggesting that self-organization will only occur if there are few prior connections between the elements, indeed he says no more than two. In retrospect, it seems to make sense. If everything is hardwired in advance how could it self-organize?