The OpenSpace Agility Method

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What is OpenSpace Agility (OSA)?

OpenSpace Agility (OSA) is a repeatable technique for getting rapid and lasting Agile adoption. It works with what you are currently doing, and can be added at any time.

In OSA, executive leaders are very much in charge of the process. When using OSA, leaders clearly communicate two key aspects:

  • An overall Agile direction.
  • A very clear set of guardrails or limits or rules for everyone involved: the developers, teams, and stakeholders.

By focusing on employee engagement, as a leader you can expect the following outcomes:

  • A dramatic reduction in the coaching & training costs of your Agile program
  • A rapid, genuine, and lasting Agile transformation
  • Much higher employee engagement scores
  • Predictable, reliable, repeatable improvement in overall results
  • Increases in stakeholder satisfaction and potentially, stakeholder delight
Each OpenSpace Agility cycle has just 5 basic and repeatable steps. 

  • These steps are repeated in an iterative fashion. 
  • OpenSpace Agility actually embodies the Agile principles of iteration, experimentation, frequent inspection, and improvement. OSA implements Agile in a very Agile way.
  • Any Agile framework is acceptable for use with OSA. 
  • You can think of OSA as a process for introducing that framework.

Step 1: Leadership and Enterprise Preparation

  • Leaders Define Clear Direction.
    • Leaders explain "the why" of the Agile direction, by citing the business opportunities, the business challenges, and the need for continuous improvement.
  • Leaders Define Clear Guardrails and Rules.
    • Define and describe some very clear boundaries and guardrails. 
    • These guardrails are the 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto. 
    • Practices that align with these 12 principles are acceptable for teams to use.
  • Collection of Starting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). 
    • OpenSpace Agility uses evidence-based metrics. 
    • Before working in an Agile way, a baseline set of measures is taken. 
    • These measures serve as both a diagnostic, to surface issues, and as a metric, for a subsequent before-and-after compare.
  • Training In Agile Fundamentals. 
    • Teaching in Agile principles and practices is offered to everyone. 
    • All stakeholders and team members are encouraged to attend.
  • No Mandate of Specific Practices. 
    • Leaders offer opportunities for teams to choose from a range of Agile practice options within a well-defined container.
    • Several very specific measuring instruments are utilized during this preparation step.

Step 2: Initiate the process using an all-hands "OpenSpace" meeting

  • The first OpenSpace meeting: 
    • This is a facilitated all-hands meeting of at least one day that is authorized by executive leadership. 
    • The executives lead the way. This is the formal kick-off of your Agile journey. It sets the stage for the org-wide learning, engagement, and improved results that follow.

Step 3: Initiate Agile practices across the enterprise

  • Teams are authorized to use practices that align with the Agile Manifesto. 
  • The outputs from this step include:
    • More predictable and reliable software deliveries
    • Enormous levels of Agile learning… up, down, and across the organization.
    • Dramatically higher levels of employee engagement
    • The collection-specific metrics to measure results, and inform the next steps

Step 4: Complete the process in OpenSpace

  • The Second OpenSpace meeting.
    • It is both a retrospective and a prospective one. 
    • The organization looks back, and forward (making actionable plans).
    • As a result of this process, you can expect:
      • Your process to tangibly mature and improve. 
      • You can expect your entire organization to engage in the difficult business of customizing and tailoring the Agile process to your context, in service to continuous improvement.

Step 5: Inspect Results and Adapt

  • When this step is reached, the multi-team iteration (or "chapter of learning") is complete. 
  • The results are inspected. Executives encourage engagement in the process of continuous improvement. 
  • Adjustments are made and the next cycle of 45 to 100 days is planned.

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Coaching with FOTO

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What is FOTO?

FOTO stands for "From Obstacles to Outcomes", and the game's objective is to generate as many outcomes as you can in the allotted time – 15 minutes for a table group working together in the Lite edition, or 3-4 minutes per rotation (plus some changeover time) through the Classic edition’s roles of client, coach, and host.

As well as an objective, 15-minute FOTO has rules, two of them – it is a game after all! They make it a generative process:

  • You can only ask questions from the card
  • For the X's in many of the questions, you must use previous answers or fragments thereof, verbatim

There are no wrong answers, but the intent of the questioning should be to elicit outcomes in a spirit of curiosity, not to fish for solutions (suggesting solutions isn’t possible within the rules). In view of the game’s objective, questioners – 'coaches' – are advised not to waste time digging into obstacles; however, some quick clarification may be helpful.

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Introduction to Clean Language Questions

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The Clean Language questions were developed by counseling psychologist David Grove, who instead of giving advice, went by his client’s choice of words rather than paraphrasing and devised questions that contained as few assumptions and metaphors as possible. 

Clean Language is a new way of thinking about the way people think, with profound implications and powerful effects. As a general principle, Clean Language questions are about the positive stuff in the speaker’s landscape – the resources they have, and the outcomes they desire.

Developing Questions

Encourage the person to be more specific, to become clear about what's true for them.
  • Elaborate. These are the two most common Clean Language questions. Invite the person to elaborate on their experience, to find out more about it. It is recommended to ask these questions predominantly on the positive aspects of the person's experience.
    • "(And) what kind of X is that X?"
    • "(And) is there anything else about X ?"
  • Name and address. Encourage a person to elaborate on the thing they have mentioned to give more details. Clarify what the person is thinking about and where it is. Useful to explore emotions.
    • "(And) where is X?"
    • "(And) whereabouts it X?"
  • Asking for a metaphor. Once you have identified some symbols and locations, ask:
    • "(And) that X is like what?"
  • Relationship questions. Once you have two symbols, you can find out if, and how, they relate to each other.
    • "(And) is there a relationship between X and Y?"
    • "(And) when X, what happens to Y?"

Sequence Questions

Help a person to decide where an event starts and where it finishes. These questions help the speaker fill in the information that they may not have realized was missing.
  • "(And) then what happens?"
  • "(And) what happens next?"
  • "(And) what happens just before X?"

Source Questions

This is one of the least-used Clean Language questions and it generates several kinds of sources of information - any of which you can ask further questions. 
  • "(And) where could X come from?"

Intention Questions

Finding out more about the desired outcomes, thinking in positive terms, and have focused on the goal.
  • "(And) what would you like to have [to] happen?"

Necessary Condition Questions

These questions explore causality and possible obstacles. It is usual to ask layers of these questions, first finding out all, or most of the conditions that need to be in place for the desired outcome to be achieved and then checking if each of the conditions can be met.
  • "(And) what needs to happen for X?"
  • "(And) can X happen?"

Questions that utilize other verbs

  • "How do you know X?"
  • "Does … have a size or a shape?"
  • "What determines … ?"
  • "Where does / could … come from?"
  • "Can … ?"

The Syntax

You may be wondering what has happened to the ‘and’ I mentioned before. That comes in when you combine one of these questions with the client’s words. 

A clean question has three functions:

  • To acknowledge what the client has said.
  • To direct their attention to one aspect of their experience.
  • To send them on a quest for self-knowledge.
So if I client says, “I would like to be more healthy.”
  1. "And you would like to be more healthy" (acknowledge)
  2. "And when more healthy," (direct attention)
  3. "Is there anything else about that?" (quest for self-knowledge)

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