IngeniousPeoplesKnowledge

Interesting ideas – and large-group events (such as OpenSpaceTechnology) could and do contribute to create instances of such “liquid networks” that have an impact in the moment but also beyond.

We are happy and proud to launch our new Facilitation Handbook. The title “Knowledge Sharing for Change – Designing and Facilitating Learning Processes with a Transformative Impact” embodies our credo that underlies our work and in particular the events we design and facilitate: that the ultimate goal must be to bring about transformation of some sort, however that learning (in particular peer-to-peer learning) and knowledge sharing are key to such change.

The Handbook explains our own, particular approach to change processes, that builds on the idea of looking at social groups and institutions as complex systems. It contains various sections: starting with a brief general outline of how we believe we can deal with complex systems in a change context, it then draws practical conclusions on designing and delivering change events (such as workshops, meetings, conferences, …) – in particular in terms of the architecture of such events; it then creates an overview over methods and tools which allow to select and assemble them into a meaningful order that directs the event towards results.

What initally had triggered off the writing of this Handbook was the need to have some sort of “training script” for our facilitation and change trainings. We since have successfully held our first training events and are very happy about how people received and appreciated this tool. If you’re interested to learn more about possibilities and maybe a tailor-made training for your context/organisation, please touch base!

If this Handbook is useful to you, then we are very pleased. We welcome any comments, ideas, also for improvement! Please don’t hesitate to contact us!

Catherine & Marc

To download, click on the cover above or visit our “Resources & Downloads” section, where you find it under “General”

From September 21-23, 2010, we have faciliated the ILO Asia Pacific Regional Workshop Entrepreneurship Education.  The workshop was aimed at identifying ways to improve quality and impact of youth entrepreneurship training in South-East Asia. The workshop gathered 90 participants from Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, China, Thailand, and the ILO Headoffice in Switzerland. It truly followed the approach of bringing the entire relevant system into one room: the group comprised trade unionists, delegates from employers’ organisations and the private sector, school teachers and headmasters, government officials from various levels (national, regional, local), experts on entrepreneurship education, and donor represenatives.

On the whole, the process followed the basic structure of an Real Time Strategic Change (RTSC), with a large Speed Geeking session integrated into the first day and an almost full-day OpenSpace towards the end. The event did not only produce a series of recommendations based on the insights and lessons learnt extracted from the collective knowledge of participants, but it led to about 30 action items that various groups and persons decided to take up and put in practice to make a real difference.

On September 2nd, 2010, I-P-K has been faciliating the 2nd Round Table on Local Economic Development of SALGA, the “South African Local Governance Association”. This multi-stakeholder event gathered about 45 participants, representing in particular donor organisatgions, but also delegates from municipalities, government agencies, and some NGOs working in the field. The Round Table was hosted in OpenSpaceTechnology. During a 6-hours event, 12 working sessions on various topics were convened and held.

I-P-K has been designing and facilitating the Interagency Conference on Local Economic Development, which took place in October 2008 in Turin, Italy. The conference was hosted by the International Training Centre of the ILO. More than 120 participants gathered over 3 days, shared experiences and knowledge and looked for new ways of how to address the challenges in this field.

The conference built on many of the methods and approaches that we promote. To get a brief overview over some of the methods used, watch this brief video:

Many of us experience our work, the organisations we are part of, our communities, even our countries and in fact the whole world around us as transforming at ever increasing speed. To deal with the resulting challenges we need an approach that involves all affected and interested parties with their experiences, insights, questions and wisdom.

Open Space Technology is such an approach. It supports organisations and systems of all kinds and sizes to utilize their inherent potential for self-organisation leading to high performance characterized by collaboration, cooperation, participation and broad leadership. It provides a framework of time and space in which everyone works on those issues they feel passionate about and for which they are prepared to take responsibility. Leaders, managers, consultants, students, group workers, community organisers, planners and everyone interested in the future of their organisations and communities will benefit from this workshop.

IngeniousPeoplesKnowledge is proud to host an Open Space Technology Workshop in South Africa in collaboration with the berlin open space cooperative (boscop) .

boscop members have facilitated several hundred Open Space events with groups ranging from 5 to 2108 participants in 30 countries worldwide. Their unique training design uses Open Space itself as the basic training process, which has been developed over the last decade through application in many Open Space Technology Trainings with participants from around the world.

Participants will thoroughly acquaint themselves with Open Space Technology (OST) in the workshop by:

• learning about the prerequisits of Open Space meetings;
• experiencing an Open Space planning session;
• experiencing an Open Space meeting under the title agreed on in the planning session;
• reflecting on the recent experience as a participant in another Open Space session under the title “Open Space on Open Space”;
• transferring their Open Space experience into first application steps in an Open Space action planning process;
• parallel “learning spaces” for self-organised learning providing books and articles as well as audio and visual resources on Open Space, and a “question & answer wall” to reflect on the current experience

The training design follows the Open Space process’ inner logic by placing experiential and self-organised learning at its core. The underlying principle being that “Open Space cannot be taught or studied, but must be experienced first-hand in order to be understood and remembered”.

IngeniousPeoplesKnowledge (I-P-K) is a Cape Town based consultancy firm that specializes in Knowledge and Change Management. I-P-K’s facilitation and coaching methodologies are based on understanding the complexity of living systems and social processes and are aimed at enabling synchronous learning amongst participants. We design transformative organizational processes that are inclusive and able to generate individual commitment towards a collective action plan: Open Space Technology is one of the approaches we use.

Read a short Background Document on Open Space Technology.

You will find all relevant booking details here below (click on “More…”). A more detailed training programme will be available closer to the time.

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