Open-space Technology - Origin and Ownership

Origin and Ownership

The history of Open Space Technology is detailed in the Introduction to "Open Space Technology: A User's Guide", by Harrison Owen.

In the early 1980s, Harrison Owen wrote a paper on what he called "organization transformation". He presented this paper at a traditional management conference. It was well enough received that a number of people urged Owen to organize a conference to specifically address the issues and opportunities he identified in his paper. Owen hosted the first annual Symposium on Organization Transformation in 1983, in a traditional conference format, in Monterey, California. The event was a success, inasmuch as it was generally agreed that it should happen again. The second annual symposium (OT-2) one year later, but still in a traditional conference format.

Harrison Owen agreed to organize OT-3 for the following year, but by his own account, did not relish another year of work to manage all the details. Upon volunteering to host the third symposium, he retreated to the bar, where he consistently claims to have discovered what he later called the "open space" approach to meetings and events, at the bottom of his second martini. His plan for the following year's symposium was informed by his experience as a biblical scholar, associate pastor, peace corps organizer in the villages of west Africa, and federal government staffer and organization development consultant in Washington DC.

The following year, he sent out a simple, one-paragraph invitation, and more than 100 people showed up to discuss Organization Transformation. In his main meeting room he set the chairs one large circle and proceeded to explain that what participants could see in the room was the extent of his organizing work. If they had an issue or opportunity that they felt passionate about and wanted to discuss with other participants, they should come to the center of the circle, get a marker and paper, write their issue and their name, read that out, and post it on the wall. It took about 90 minutes for the 100+ people to organize a 3-day agenda of conference sessions, each one titled, hosted, and scheduled by somebody in the group.

Participants at OT-1 and OT-2 said that the best part of the events was the coffee breaks, which Owen always pointed out was the one part of the event that he didn't plan and couldn't take credit for. His inspiration to articulate the theme, the larger purpose for the work of the symposium, in an invitation and then a brief opening comment, and then simply "open the space" for participants to self-organize around the issues and opportunities they saw as essential to that purpose, was a conscious decision to make "more of what works". His martini-based plan sought to minimize the grunt work by leadership (him) and assign responsibility for maximizing productive learning and contribution to his participants (everyone else).

The approach worked well, in the 3-1/2 days symposium, where it was repeated annually through OT-20. Soon after the first "Open Space" event at OT-3, however, Owen tried the same approach with a consulting client, a large chemical firm and a group of polymer chemists. When it worked there, too, the participants of OT began trying it out with their clients, in a variety of different kinds of organizations, to address many different kinds of strategic and community issues, in countries around the world. They returned to the OT symposium each year to share learnings.

Owen never trademarked or patented or certified "open space" in any way. He always claimed to have discovered, rather than invented, it. He said it could be practiced freely by anyone with a good head and good heart. From the beginning, he said only that those who used the approach and found it valuable, should share their stories and learnings as freely, as well.

Twenty-five years later, Harrison Owen estimates that more than 100,000 different "Open Space" meetings have taken place. The Open Space World Map (http://www.openspaceworldmap.org) documents that these events have taken place in more than 160 countries. In December 2009, the OSLIST email listserve (hosted by Boise State University at http://listserv.boisestate.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=OSLIST) for practitioners worldwide had 660+ members in 39 countries and more than 26,500 publicly searchable messages, relating to all aspects of practice. Information about open space is now posted in 21 different languages at Open Space World (http://www.openspaceworld.org). There are at least five different government-chartered associations or institutes (France, Germany, Portugal, Sweden and USA) promoting Open Space practice around the world, and also active, but informal, organizations in several other countries (including Canada, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand, and the UK). The German-language Yahoo group started February 2002, had 233 members at year-end 2009, mostly from Germany, Austria and Switzerland and also from France, Spain, The Netherlands, Poland and elsewhere, with 3497 messages in its archive. At year-end 2009, the Australian email group was more than 500 strong.

Harrison Owen originally used the term "open space" for his "self-organizing meetings". One of the earliest implementations of the approach was for a conference theme of "The business of business is learning," in Goa, India. The organizer of the conference was interviewed by the local media and described the simple process. When asked what the process was called, he embellished it a bit, with the more important-sounding "Open Space Technology". The story was picked up by The New York Times (need date, c. 1985), and so "open space" became "Open Space Technology".