Open Space Technology (OST) is an effective, economical, fast and easily repeatable strategy for organizing meetings of groups between 10 and 10,000 participants. The process of OST combined with an experienced facilitator creates a self organizing meeting that allows groups of all sizes and in varying time scales to deal with hugely complex issues and create solid action plans to which people are committed.

OST enables groups of any size to address complex, important issues and achieve meaningful results quickly.It functions best where more traditional meeting formats fail: in situations involving conflict, complexity, diversity of thought or people, and short decision-times. OST is not effective for large group conferences where decisions and processes have already been decided and need to be communicated.

Open Space Technology works best under the following conditions:

• The topic of the meeting involves a significant organisational issue.
• The participants invited really care about that issue.
• The issue has so much complexity that no single person or small group can fully understand it.
• The issue requires highly diverse skills and people for a successful resolution.
• The participants have genuine passion about the issue.
• The issue requires immediate action (a “decision time of yesterday”)

Andi Roberts can provide support and facilitation, in English or Spanish, for the whole Open Space Technology process from the initial planning through to supporting idea sustainability.

For more information contact Andi Roberts using one of the contact methods on the top of the page.