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OPEN SPACE CONVERSATION 5/16/9 “HOW TO UNLEASH THE POTENTIAL OF DYNAMIC FACILITATION® IN THE U.S.?” (This session was facilitated using Dynamic Facilitation [DF]. The notes below are presented in the DF format categories of Solutions; Problem Statements/Issues?; Data; Concerns)

PROBLEM STATEMENTS
1. How to unleash the potential of Dynamic Facilitation in the US?
2. How do we maintain relationship with the people who have been trained in DF, empower them to use DF and do it as a livelihood?
3. How to get the identity of Dynamic Facilitation and/or Wisdom Councils clear?
4. How to help people overcome the life trauma that causes them not to want to look at reality.
5. How does the DF community assure quality in the practice at the same time as promoting accessibility?
6. How to sense where the energy is in the Dynamic Facilitation community?
7. How to switch the benefit and emphasis from the overall organization to the Dynamic Facilitation practitioners?
8. How to help people trained in Dynamic Facilitation to see the value of using the process now and overcoming their resistance to using it?
9. How to make DF more easily digestible?
10. How to create expectations that practitioners should be contributing back to the community of practitioners?

SOLUTIONS
1. Gradually build more stories and case studies illustrating the DF process and its value.
2. Ask people why they don’t use Dynamic Facilitation. Use A/I, Positive Deviance or other methods to conduct a survey. All these methods look for what’s working in the field. Perhaps have a phone call with 10-20 DFers and have this exploratory conversation.
3. Look for where there is active potential for DF to combine with organizations in which the process would be very useful, e.g. Transition Towns. For example, DF could join ranks with the Transition Town movement and then be part of the process. Recruit training in Ashland. Another organization is Strategic Conversations which is a think tank about the movement of transformational energy throughout the world, identification of where it gets stuck and application of methods to unblock the energy (like applying acupuncture to the world energy.) DF could be one of the techniques used where the energy is stuck.
4. Establish a stand/standard where JRA is on DF practitioners, (practice standards, value, etc.)
5. Do mock DF scenarios of situations in which DF would be of value. Show/report the examples on the website so people can see specific value to their particular situation.
6. Articulate value of DF. Be specific in stating value to various audiences. Where do we want DF to live?
7. DF list serve. Develop training for DF trainers. Establish different levels of DF training products: beginner, intermediate, advanced. Establish a clear relationship of DFers with JRA and the benefits to both.
8. Create various products with values and standards, including online products. What do you get from the organization and the various trainings? If you buy the training manual and do trainings you get a particular beginning skill set then learn the nuances and mastery in the more advanced trainings.
9. Teach how DF practitioner will increase their value to the community as they deepen in their expertise with the practice. Each rank has a value to the community and is determined by such things as case studies written, courses taken, practice done, etc.
10. Set it up so that participation in the DF Learning Community has a value to the practitioner. To participate, pay something to support the creation and maintenance of the community; provide case studies; have a place on your individual website where you post client comments. (Similar to Amazon.com user reviews.)
11. Break down DF teaching into individual skills that are components of the total DF process, e.g. reflection, chart writing (speed, legibility, etc.) Teach courses in each individual aspect.
12. Build an infrastructure that can adequately support a large expansion of DF.
13. Either develop the capacity to provide and deliver the largest vision of DF or deconstruct the training process so that it is simple and people can take digestible bites.
14. Articulate what the successful components of a DF session are.
15. Develop a short first page for the website that clearly describes the process and it’s benefits. Test the page by sending out to the DF community for feedback and revise the page accordingly. Repeat the write/test process til the page is the most effective. The first page is the most important public relations page.
16. Do a market survey: Ask people who know DF to list what the process has to offer. Then show the list to people who aren’t familiar with DF and ask them which of the items on the list really excite them.
17. On webpage, describe an instance where DF really blew your mind. Document compelling, transformational epiphanies.
18. Give DF facilitators different ways to describe/present DF to others. Ask DFers what has worked for them.
19. Write a system of follow up questionnaires to use at various points after the DF training.
20. Do a GoogleMap? of facilitators, trainings, Wisdom Councils and Creative Choice Councils.
21. Learn from the Co-Intelligence community’s question of “What would it take you to get involved in a Co-intelligence community?”
22. DeAnna? needs help on the website and other work.
23. Team using surveys. Part of the possibility of being part of a learning community.
24. Identify “Go-To People” within the organization rather than having it all come to DeAnna?. Make the organization more accessible and useful to DFers.
25. Example of the Gracious Space project of the Center for Ethical Leadership. The first step the new C.O.O. took in creating a strategic plan was to do a stakeholder survey.
26. Look at already successful learning communities such as World Cafe and Open Space and particularly study the very-sophisticated Permaculture community. Transition Towns came out of the Permaculture learning community. A.I. on A. interviews about what has worked.
27. Set up monthly phone calls with various people like Jim, DeAnna? to help establish the connection of a learning community.
28. Offer repeat training for free to people who use DF a lot.
29. Grameen Bank - micro loans. One woman doesn’t get a loan until the woman before her pays hers back.

CONCERNS
1. JRA and new trainees compete. What stand should JRA have in monitoring or promoting the practices of new trainees?
2. The structure is too messy.
3. People who have taken the training are not using DF in situations in which it would be useful. Ask them why.
4. If DF were to be suddenly in demand, I am afraid it would self destruct as there is not adequate infrastructure to support it.
5. There was formerly too much theory in the training.
6. The website is not user-friendly for new users. It is not immediately clear on the first page of the website what DF is and how it can benefit me.
7. “The testimonials for my DF sessions have been so positive that I am embarrassed to use them.” Start testimonial page saying that.
8. We don’t ask DFer’s what they need to keep them involved with the organization and use the process.
9. We don’t see or develop connections within this community.
10. DeAnna? is doing all the work without the support of the community.
11. We have not established a Learning Community.

DATA 1. We are also using this Open Space meeting as our board meeting.
2. A lot of people have been trained in DF and we try to stay in touch with them.
3. There are many people who have been training in DF but do not use it.
4. After they complete the training, they compete with JRA to give workshops or do the DF.
5. We encourage people to write up case studies.
6. DF shines the light on reality. People whose conversations are DF’d are forced to see how it really is, to turn on the light. Many DFers are afraid and resistant to turning on the light.
7. We have no certification process. The manual is available online and others are doing the training without any quality control. The process is relatively easy to learn but takes some skill and practice to apply.
8. The paradigm has to shift in order for people to get it.
9. It is possible to use Rosa Zubizarreta’s definition of DF that she wrote in the DF manual to describe the process quickly to people who know nothing about it.
10. I had a big revelatory moment during my first DF process. My attacking energy was quickly turned around by the facilitator in a skillful Aikido-like move.
11. Do ask people at the end of the DF trainings what they need to be supported and be connected.
12. Many people find the seminar life-transforming but still do not use the process when they have the opportunity.
13. The seminar is now much more skill-based than it was originally, in response to participant feedback.
14. We could apply the same ideas that we are talking about here to help GSpace as well as Dynamic Facilitation. We have similar problems and needs.
15. GS’s longest alumni had a transformational experience. We changed the training to be more skill based and broadly applicable but now there is less connection.