To Converge Or Not To Converge?

An Open Space event brings out divergent thinking -- and because participants jump from the cognitive to the intuitive, I call it emergent thinking. Each Open Space is designed with the client/sponsor and participants in mind. Do they need to converge thinking to identify key issues and priorities and/or work on action plans? Perhaps they do; perhaps they do not. Rather than automatically design convergence into your event, you may wish to think about what is essential for the time participants share together.

In some instances, highlighting key issues and forming action plans and work groups can come after the event in a way that is natural for the organization's system of communicating and meeting -- the event itself can close with participants reflecting upon the experience they shared - which is also a kind of convergence. At other times you may feel it is best to include some sort of convergence in the event itself.

In other situations, you may wish to design a closing activity that helps people reflect on their experience - another kind of convergence, but not one which prioritizes anything. And if you feel it may be useful to them you can design something that helps them identify a personal passion, issue or commitment that they would like to bring home into their own work and lives.

Or you may feel that the participants' and clients' goals will be best achieved by opening things up and expanding thoughts outward at the end of your event in sort of a "non-convergence" - a re-opening of space.

Usually the notes from their discussions throughout the previous day(s) are either posted on the walls throughout the event or presented to them in a Book of Proceedings on the last day (or both). Depending on the amount of session notes, participants can be given from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours to review the notes before they are asked to converge.

If you do decide that highlighting or prioritizing key issues is important for the design of your event, there are various ways to accomplish it. The following are different facilitators' approaches and their thoughts on convergence -- or non-convergence…

One important note: As you can read below many of us use different convergence and closing approaches to fit different organizations, organizational or community cultures -- and depending on what best serves the individuals and the collective group for its work after the Open Space event. Most of the facilitators who share their approaches below indeed use several convergence or non-convergence methods - not just the ones that they have written about here. As a community of practitioners we share and learn different tools from each other and put them to use as may best fit each situation.

To further inform your design regarding convergence, see also the paper Convergence: A Conversation, which illustrates different facilitators' experiences, choices and reasons for preferences of one method over the other when deciding to include convergence and / or action planning.