The shapes an Open Space can take
By its principles, an Open Space has no fixed length and no fixed place. What is fixed is the work beforehand: the urgent question, the invitation and what is already settled, the givens. Below are the formats I facilitate.
What every format shares
Every format below follows the same shape: opening in the circle, a marketplace where participants propose their own topics, session rounds under the Law of Two Feet (if a conversation stops giving you something, move), and a closing that gathers the harvest. Multi-day work adds evening news each night and a closing circle on the last day.
Below is what makes each format its own: the length, the group size, what it specifically needs, and what the group takes away.
1. Open Space within your programme
An hour and a half to half a day, alongside plenaries or talks. For conferences and community days that want their audience to set part of the agenda.
The shorter time means one or two session rounds, with a short report-back to the room rather than a full harvest. The question needs to connect to the day's theme, and the marketplace needs its own spot among the other programme items.
What remains is a small harvest, compact enough to feed straight back into the rest of the programme.
2. An Open Space day
A full day, from 20 to 200+ participants. Unlike format 1, the whole day runs self-organising, with room for several session rounds in sequence.
That calls for a space available all day: a large circle for opening and closing, plus enough separate, acoustically apart rooms for the parallel sessions.
The group closes with a full harvest of every session, ready to prioritise or turn into action plans.
3. Multi-day or spread out
Two days in a row, or spread over weeks, with the same group.
What sets it apart from a single day is the second meeting: the group first looks back at what has been tried since the previous session. That takes an agreement upfront on who picks things up between meetings.
Alongside the harvest, the group also carries forward what already moved in the meantime.
4. Online
For international or dispersed groups, on a platform built for Open Space, or with Zoom.
The marketplace becomes a Miro board, and the session rooms become breakout rooms. Participants choose which room to enter themselves: that self-selection is the condition, since the Law of Two Feet only holds online if people can act on it. It takes a Zoom setup with self-selection turned on, and a Miro board ready before the opening.
Afterwards the harvest sits in the board or in shared documents, just as usable as it would be on paper.
5. Strategic session
For boards, leadership teams and large non-profits that want to open a strategic question to everyone who holds part of the answer.
What weighs more heavily here than in the other formats: budget and timeline are usually settled beforehand, along with what is not up for discussion. The sponsor comes from the leadership itself.
Leadership builds the harvest alongside everyone else in the room.
More on this format: strategic sessions.
6. A programme: preparation, Open Space, follow-up
Open Space as the frame of a longer programme, running weeks to months. Where it fits, I combine it with Conversation Café or Liberating Structures for smaller steps before or after.
That takes a choice upfront about the order: first build shared understanding in a smaller circle, then move into the self-organisation of a full Open Space. A follow-up session often comes after the day itself, to hold on to what the harvest agreed.
How the three phases run: the approach. Which format fits when: choosing a format.
7. For organisers: the question and the conditions
Organising an Open Space or an unconference yourself? I help with what brings it to life: the burning question, the givens and the invitation.
That work happens before the day itself: sharpening the question together, agreeing what is already decided and what isn't, then writing the invitation that follows from it. If you aren't the sponsor of the question yourself, we settle upfront who is.
By the end of that process, you have a sharp question and an invitation ready to send.
8. Support for the sessions
During the day I support session hosts, so their conversation runs well and the harvest is usable. That can sit alongside your own facilitator, or as part of any format above.
Beforehand, an overview of who is hosting which session is enough, along with a sense of what the sponsor wants to do with the harvest.
Session hosts record their own outcomes, ready to feed into the shared harvest.
How to choose
Four questions decide which format above fits best.
- How much time do you have? An hour and a half to half a day points to format 1, a full day to format 2, several days or a series to format 3.
- How big is the group, and is it in one place? If it's dispersed, format 4 is the answer regardless of length.
- What needs to happen afterwards? A strategic choice that leadership itself must own points to format 5. Standalone support inside a programme that already exists fits format 8.
- Is this part of a longer programme, or are you organising it yourself? Preparation, Open Space and follow-up as a whole is format 6. If you're organising it yourself and want help setting it up, format 7 is the starting point.
Torn between Open Space and another format such as World Café or Conversation Café? See choosing a format.
Where I have done this
Which gatherings, with numbers and my role: cases at a glance.
What it costs
I name a price after a first conversation. Preparation is most of the work, including the arrangements for the room and how it is set up. That depends on your question, the location and the group.