What are the specs on Open

Space Technology?1
 Purpose and Outcomes
o To enable high levels of group interaction and productivity, providing a
basis for enhanced organizational function over time.

 When to Use
o In critical situations requiring resolution characterized by high levels of
complexity, diversity (of participants), and conflict (potential or actual),
with a decision time of yesterday.

 When NOT to Use

o Specific predetermined outcomes are desired. OST would not be useful to
install a new financial system, but can be exceptionally effective in
designing such a system.

 Typical Duration
o Event: 1-3 days
o May last for the rest of organization’s/community’s life.

 Number of Participants
o 20-1,000 people
o No limit theoretically by using computer-connected, multisite,
simultaneous events.

 Type(s) of Participants
o Anybody who cares about the issue under consideration
o Those who care are there, voluntary attendance.

 Examples
o Rockport Shoes convened all hands to chart a broad range of strategic and
tactical issues. In the first six hours, they developed a new product with
an estimated first-year return of $20 million. Rockport also created an
improvement to their inventory system, saving an estimated $4 million.
Before the event had concluded, they added $24 million to a $200 million
bottom line.

1
The Change Handbook, Peggy Holman and Tom Devane, Berrett-Koehler, 1999.

© 2003, Caldwell Consulting, Ltd., All rights reserved. www.eiisuccess.com, 214.641.4084. 1

 o National Education Association meeting of 420 teachers, school board
members and administrators explore how to enhance education in
America; in less than an hour they created 85 workshops, then ran the
two-day conference themselves.2

o U.S. Forest Service travel-and-management division hosted 224 people

representing 65 organizations - from the Sierra Club to timber
companies to the National Nude Sunbathing Society - to meet on the issue
of access to public land. In less than an hour, they created 62 task forces
and managed the conference themselves for two days.

o Albany Ladder, a $25 million regional distributor of construction

equipment, uses it regularly for its annual planning meeting. A group
conceived a new line of scaffolding, merged it with a training program and
a safety program, and presented it as a brand new product offering.
Engineers passed on the blueprints within two months and the product was
on the market within six months instead of usual 18 months.

o Supply and Services Canada is a government's purchasing agent for

Canada. The 160 managers attending an Open Space developed and posted
47 session topics in 14 minutes. The group took only 50 minutes to
structure itself into 29 sessions stretching over a day and a half.

 Impact on Cultural Assumptions

o People discover the capacity to operate as self-managed work teams with
high level of personal responsibility and leadership.

 Creator(s) and When

o Harrison Owen with collegial assistance from thousands in 1985.

2
Tales from Open Space, Harrison Owen, Editor, Abbott Publishing, Potomac, Maryland, 1995.

© 2003, Caldwell Consulting, Ltd., All rights reserved. www.eiisuccess.com, 214.641.4084. 2