Last week, I was asked to facilitate an ideation workshop at a large business. It seems that my – now many years of experience – butterflying through various organisations is proving to be a useful skill to have and I can help groups to think outside of the box, and deliver workshops not related to technology.
So I did. I took on the challenge.
While giving some thoughts on the best way to run this workshop, I needed to have an environment where new ideas needed to emerge, as crazy and creative as they might sound, so that the various managers from different teams would come up with innovation that they would not have thought about if focusing on their day-to-day.
I chose to reproduce an OST or “Open Space Technology”, which I initially saw being used by my friends at the Happy Startup Summer camp with 120 people.
And with 16 participants, it went beautifully. Participants came up with some great ideas, some meant to solve issues, others were totally new business ideas.
Have you used or heard of Open Space before?
Did you know that the Egyptian Revolution started from an open space in Tahrir square?
