OpenSpace Beta: A handbook for organizational transformation in just 90 days

By Silke Hermann, Niels Pflaeging and Daniel Mezick

The practical guide to making the Beta organization happen. Anywhere - in just a few months. Sounds impossible? It isn´t anymore! This handbook spells out an all-hands, high-engagement approach to organizational transformation that is suitable for any kind of company - regardless of size, age, country/culture, legal form and industry! So ob

• Language: English
• Publisher: BetaCodex Press
• Release date: Sep 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9780991537693

Book preview

OpenSpace Beta

A handbook for organizational transformation in just 90 days

Silke Hermann I Niels Pflaeging

Imprint

Other books from BetaCodex Publishing:

Niels Pflaeging: Organize for Complexity, 2014

Niels Pflaeging: Essays on Beta, Vol. 1, 2020

Niels Pflaeging I Silke Hermann: Complexitools, 2020

Copyright © 2018 by Silke Hermann & Niels Pflaeging

2nd, revised and updated edition, 2020

This book was published by the authors under BetaCodex Publishing. No part of this book, including the illustrations, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying – except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper, or published online – without permission in writing from the publisher.

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ISBN 978-0-991537-66-2 (print)

ISBN 978-0-991537-69-3 (ebook)

Cover & book design: Niels Pflaeging

Illustrations & timeline design: Ingeborg Scheer, dasign.de

Additional illustrations (cover, p. 25, 27): Pia Steinmann, pia-steinmann.de

Back cover photo: Janik Happel

Copy editors: Deborah Hartmann Preuss, Francois Lavallée, Matt Moersch, Valentin Yonchev and Jeremy Brown

OpenSpace Beta©, the open-source OpenSpace Beta© timeline, events, rules, roles, meetings, consulting techniques and related documents are published under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. For further information about this license, see the chapter Origins of OpenSpace Beta – and what you can do with it in this book.

Visit our websites:

www.openspacebeta.com I www.betacodexpublishing.com I www.silkehermann.com I www.nielspflaeging.com I www.betacodex.org

The OpenSpace Beta timeline

OpenSpace Beta© and the OpenSpace Beta© timeline by Silke Hermann & Niels Pflaeging. Illustrations: Ingeborg Scheer. www.openspacebeta.com

You can view & download this illustration here: www.openspacebeta.com/timeline. It is also available as a poster on www.redforty2.com/shop

"Without passion, nobody cares.

Without responsibility, nothing gets done."

Harrison Owen

Contents

Acknowledgment: Daniel Mezick & OpenSpace Agility

A note on the revised and updated 2nd edition

Foreword – by Daniel Mezick

How to use this book

Origins of OpenSpace Beta – and what you can do with it

Bye-bye coercion, hello engagement! The Why of OpenSpace Beta

Part 1: Conceptual background to OpenSpace Beta (There is nothing as practical!)

Self-organization and assumptions on human nature

Org Physics: The 3 structures of organizations

Decentralization & team autonomy

Work as a game in self-organized systems

Terminology

Part 2: OpenSpace Technology: Roles & key ideas (With an introductory text by Harrison Owen)

About OpenSpace Technology

Authority and self-organization in OpenSpace

OpenSpace roles

The Sponsor*

The Facilitator*

The Participants*

The Conveners*

The five principles of OpenSpace and the one law

Part 3: OpenSpace Beta: Roles & key ideas (Foundations)

Key elements of OpenSpace Beta

OpenSpace Beta roles

The Formally Authorized Managers*

The Influencers & the Reputationers*

The Teams*

The Master of Ceremonies*

The Coaches*

The Stakeholders*

Part 4: 60 days: Build-up (Set stage!)

Concepts, context, tasks

Power of invitation

Opt-in participation

Preparing executives*

Coaching role begins*

Game mechanics

Setting the stage (60 days)*

Theme crafting*

Draft/Send invitation*

Socializing the invitation (45 days)*

Part 5: OS 1: Beginning (Prepare!)

Concepts, context, tasks

Day 1. Opt-in meeting: One full day*

Proceedings from OS 1*

Day 2. Prep day: Setting up time-boxed flipping*

Part 6: 90 days: Practicing – flipping – learning (Do!)

Concepts, context, tasks

Practicing – flipping – learning (90 days)*

Value-creation strengthening*

Time-boxed flipping*

Learning accelerators*

Practicing Beta team patterns*

The BetaCodex

Laws of the BetaCodex

BetaCodex constraints*

Disciplined practice

Direct experience

Proprietors of power in action*

Deliberate storytelling*

Part 7: OS 2: Ending (Check!)

Concepts, context, tasks

Theme & invitation for OS 2*

Second OpenSpace meeting (OS 2)*

Day 1 & 2: Opt-in meeting

Proceedings from OS 2

Part 8: 30 days: Quiet period (Level up!)

Concepts, context, tasks

Quiet period (30 days)

Energy, action and increased momentum

Coaching role ends*

Higher performance

Chapter debrief*

Recurring OpenSpace*

& more: Additional resources & more (Useful stuff for Beta work)

Recommended reading

Complementary online stuff & video content

Other books from BetaCodex Publishing

About Silke Hermann

About Niels Pflaeging

Get the Red42 books, posters & learning bundles! For you, your team, your company

Thank you!

Acknowledgment: Daniel Mezick & OpenSpace Agility

Only a couple of months have passed since our first encounter with Daniel Mezick, in May 2018. It is hard to come across a fresh, sophisticated concept that is as well fleshed-out, and as well-explained as Daniel´s OpenSpace Agility. When we met Daniel, and got talking about inviting, non-coercive approaches to change, we immediately sensed the potential of his core approach for what we call Beta transformation.

OpenSpace Agility has been a booster to our creativity: It kick-started the development of OpenSpace Beta. Thanks to the creators of OpenSpace Agility and the handbook that accompanies it, we were able to conceive OpenSpace Beta and this handbook in just a few months, from idea to market.

We borrowed a lot from the wonderful book by Daniel and his co-authors; we modified a lot of details, took out a few things, and added roughly 30% of Beta-related stuff. Through remixing & tweaking, we transformed Daniel´s original concept to serving transformation of entire organizations, regardless of size.

We are thankful to Daniel for his radically open-source approach to innovation, which we share and cherish! Daniel’s generosity, and his willingness to share experience and conceptual insight have been unusual. We think that his spirit of radical sharing is exemplary for a new era of collaboration that we all long for. It is this spirit of all-in collaboration that we urgently need, if we want to shape the future of work, together.

What´s so cool about this: While the overall approach of OpenSpace Beta is new (it blew our minds quite a few times while we fully figured it out for ourselves!), all the concepts within the approach are research-based and practically tested. Everything that we present in this book has been tested and done: By ourselves, throughout our 15 years of working on Beta organizations. By Daniel and by the other OpenSpace Agility creators and practitioners.

Our special thanks go to all the authors of The OpenSpace Agility Handbook, a rich and innovative resource that has been the foundation of the book you are holding in your hands. The OpenSpace Agility Handbook proved to be such a great resource that we were able to use it as a model for several of the sections of this book, and tweak other parts, in order to make them fit for Beta-style, full-fledge, organizational transformation. Thank you for letting us use the OpenSpace Agility Handbook and web text as a baseline resource: Mark Sheffield, Deborah Pontes, Harold Shinsato and Louise Kold-Taylor. For more about their work, visit www.OpenSpaceAgility.com

Silke Hermann & Niels Pflaeging,

August 2018

A note on the revised and updated 2nd edition

Two years have passed since the original publication of the OpenSpace Beta concept and handbook. We are happy to report that both the overall concept of transformation and the individual components of OpenSpace Beta have proved consistent. We have been able to apply OpenSpace Beta with client companies from different industries in these two years. Through our 2-day Practitioner courses, we introduced the concept to over 150 clients and peers.

While the concepts of OpenSpace Beta passed all tests, we felt that some of the prose in this handbook needed to be more direct, more straight-forward. When translations of the handbook into German and Korean proved strenuous, we decided to revise the book and make it easier to read. At the same time, we updated some of the content and gave the book a design face-lift. Enjoy!

Foreword – by Daniel Mezick

Silke and Niels are doing something remarkable with this book: they are spreading an idea whose time has come. And that idea is a very simple one: the idea that it’s the passionate and responsible people that create real change. It’s the idea that willing people actually make everything happen. The people who say yes to an invitation.

The idea of the invitational Open Space meeting and using it in organizations appeared in the 1980s. According to the tale often told, Harrison Owen discovered it while enjoying two martinis and reflecting on life. A little later on, he wrote his first book, entitled: Spirit: Transformation and Development in Organizations. Harrison always did his best to keep Open Space truly open and free. Good news travels fast, and thousands of Open Space events took place, worldwide, over the next 30 or so years.

Then I showed up. At the time, I was an Agile coach looking for a better way. By 2010, I was sure that Open Space was that better way. And I started experimenting. I discovered that you can get very strong results if you arrange two Open Space events about 45 to 90 days apart, with some space in between, for the whole group to figure things out.

And from that idea, Prime/OS was born: a method for creating an environment, in enterprises