Earlier this Year, as Meeting Professionals International's Professional Education Conference came down to its final hours, attendees streamed into a ballroom in New Orleans' Ernest N. Morial Convention Center for what they thought would be a typical general session to close the conference. What they got was anything but typical.

The massive ballroom was set in dozens of open circles, with a stage in the center for a moderator. Huge blank sheets of paper hung along the walls, with markers nearby. A microphone stood in each corner of the room.

Then Lisa Heft, a Berkeley, Calif.-based moderator, took center stage. She encouraged people to be bumblebees and “buzz” around the room until they found a place to land. She urged them to take breaks for food and drink whenever the spirit possessed them to nourish their creativity. “If you find yourself contributing nothing after 20 minutes or so,” she said, “it's your responsibility to get up and leave so you can find the topics that truly interest you.”

How It Works

Known as Open Space Technology, this meeting format was developed in the mid-1980s by organizational consultant Harrison Owen. (See box at right.) Heft describes it as “a meeting with no agenda and little facilitation.”

Participants convene with a basic theme to focus their efforts. The facilitator explains the few ground rules, which include those above. Attendees are then asked to identify issues in which they are interested and about which they are willing to lead a discussion. Those issues are written down and posted on sheets containing the topic, time, and place where they will be discussed. Attendees pick sessions that interest them, and the breakout sessions begin.

Unlike most meetings, the discussions are recorded, issues discussed are prioritized, and groups even come up with their own action plans and timelines. The goal is for the dialogue to continue until the discussion is over, which might not always coincide with the point at which the meeting ends.

Open space meetings can last from half a day to 2.5 days, according to Heft. For example, a corporate meeting with a high probability of conflict might best be handled in a two-day meeting. The first day might be spent framing the issues, giving attendees the chance to think about and process the information that they have received that first day overnight, leading to a second day in which enough progress can be made that action planning can proceed.

Connecting Corporate Cultures

Scott Stillinger, director of human resources for Carmel Valley Ranch, a 144-room luxury resort in Carmel, Calif., is working on a project team focused on the service culture and leadership for Luxury Resorts & Hotels — which has a portfolio of 34 properties. Years ago, he attended an organizational development conference in San Francisco that used the OST format, and he met Harrison Owen there. Stillinger quickly became an OST enthusiast. He has used it for a different resort in Carmel, when he facilitated a meeting to deal with issues relating to a partnership that resort was forming with another resort and management company.

“We were creating a brand-new corporate culture,” Stillinger says. “The meeting was designed to look at the future and come up with a shared vision.”

The conference lasted two days, which is an optimal period of time for open space, according to Heft, and was held off-property. Attendees included everyone from the new organization's management team to the housekeepers. It was a typical open space setup, with the circular room and breakouts, and computer stations were used to record the discussions.

“It was very high-energy and produced a lot of positive enthusiasm,” says Stillinger, who adds that the meeting resulted in action plans for issues ranging from staff training to service. “And it was completely unintended, but I found out that I couldn't have designed a better way for people in different organizations who didn't know each other to make connections.”