Never Stop Telling the Stories

There are no trademarks or certifications in Open Space. There is only the invitation to explore, try it out, and then share your learning with others. Harrison Owen shared his own stories and learning generously. Many of us have followed his lead.

See the links below for all kinds of stories about why, how, when and where Open Space works. Open Space runs on stories and shared learning. Never stop telling the stories!

Flying above the turbulence, but not separate from it. Photo by Harrison Owen, Potomac, Maryland USA

Stories Shared by Harrison Owen

Books and Papers by Harrison Owen (most of them downloadable .pdf files)
Morning Talks at Peace and High Performance over several years (on YouTube)
Brief History of Open Space (paper)
OST: A Brief User’s Guide (the original, pre-publishing edition, in Papers)
The Practice of Peace (2d Edition, now available for viewing and downloading)
Wave Rider: Leadership for High Performance in a Self Organizing World (book)
About Harrison Owen

under construction – the links below this note should work fine, but some are still missing. still cleaning up some redundancies across pages, too. please watch your step… or go read Harrison’s Books and Papers while this section is getting cleaned up!

Stories Shared by Friends Around the World

What is Open Space?

Talking About Open Space

More Books About or Including Open Space Practice

Inviting Leadership – Michael Herman’s “Inviting Guide,” most frequently shared OS training materials, with original articulation of Inviting Organization/Leadership.
Open Space Technology: A User’s Non-Guide – Michael Herman and Chris Corrigan edited two months of wide-ranging OSLIST conversations into this valuable companion to Harrison’s User’s Guide, addressing the Non-Doing in Open Space facilitation
The Tao of Holding Space – Chris Corrigan’s translation of the Tao Te Ching for Open Space facilitators
Living Peace: The Open Space of Our Lives – Raffi Aftandelian edited this collection of Open Space facilitators’ stories about how they practice Open Space in everyday living
The New Parish Priest – Fr. Brian Bainbridge chronicled his work to replace top-down management with the spirit and practice of self-organization in a Catholic parish
Peggy/Change Handbook
Liberating Structures – 30+ micro-structures for running better meetings, well-aligned with (and including) Open Space
Initiating and Inviting Generative Change – Tova Averbuch’s guide to entry and contracting for emergent outcomes in results-based organizations

BOSSA Nova Business Agility – Jutta Eckstein and John Buck connect Beyond Budgeting, Open Space, Sociocracy and Business Agility
Open Space Agility – Daniel Mezick’s serial OS approach to Agile/Other Transformation
Inviting Leadership – Daniel Mezick and Mark Sheffield on invitation-based leadership
Fluid Adaptive Scaling Technology (forthcoming) – Quinton Quartel continuing work on FAST Agile™ scaling with hyper self-organization (Open Space)
The Open XP Solution – Dr. Sandra Walsh on using Open Space to bridge communications gaps between business and technology domains in companies

Open Space World

inviting faster, easier organization – everywhere