Open Space Technology

Open Space Technology (OST) is a method for convening sessions where participants create the agenda: Whoever has a question or topic that genuinely matters to them steps offers a session. Others join freely. 

The method was developed in the early 1980s by Harrison Owen who noticed that the deepest conversations at conferences happen during coffee breaks and thus started offering.

Benefits:

• Particularly powerful for complex, multi-stakeholder questions where no one person holds all the answers. 
• Generates high ownership of both the process and the outcomes: participants discuss what they care about, not what the organizers think is key.
• Surfaces unexpected connections, deeper meanings and cross-cutting themes that a pre-planned agenda could have missed.
• Can be applied to 2-hour to multi-day sessions for different group sizes (20–200+) without requiring individual facilitators at each table.
• Produces a written "harvest" of all sessions — participants document their own discussions as they go, then summarize the harvest and share it with others.

Disadvantages:

• Not appropriate when the organizers already have clear topics or speakers. Or if they need to fully control the process or results. 
• Requires trust in the process, openness and willingness to be surprised by the unexpected.
• The quality of the event depends heavily on the invitation: participants need to arrive with questions they really care about.
• Demands a flexible venue and ideally several breakout spaces for simultaneous conversations.

Preparation in advance:

• Define a single, clear, and compelling framing question or challenge that is complex, relevant to all participants, and genuinely unresolved.
• Invite participants to bring their questions and their energy.
• Prepare the space: a large circle of chairs for the opening and a "marketplace" for the sessions, breakout spaces and materials that participants may need (flipchart papers, pens...).

Introducing principles of Open Space. Photo by Lucie Urban.

Four Principles and One Law:

Open Space operates under four principles and one law, which are explained to all participants at the opening and serve as the foundation of the entire event:

Whoever comes is the right people

— those present are exactly who is needed; there is no point in waiting for those who are absent.

Whatever happens is the only thing that could have

— given the people, the time, and the theme, the event will unfold as it should. Expect to be surprised.

Whenever it starts is the right time

— creativity and real learning have their own rhythm; the clock is secondary.

When it is over, it is over

— sessions end when the conversation is complete, not when the clock says so.

The Law of Two Feet

— if at any point you find yourself neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet and go somewhere where you can. This benefits you as well as the whole group.

On-site process:

• Opening circle: Everyone gathers in a large circle. The facilitator explains the purpose, the principles, and the Law of Two Feet. The caller briefly frames the theme.
• Agenda setting: Anyone with a topic or question that matters to them steps into the centre of the circle, announces it, writes it on a card, and posts it on the agenda wall with a time and location. This continues until the wall is full.
• Open Space sessions: Participants choose sessions based on their own interest. Sessions are documented by participants themselves.
• Closing circle: The full group reconvenes. Participants share key insights, learnings, and next steps or invitations to others.
• Harvesting: All session notes are shared with all participants.

Harvested conversation that mattered to the influencers at Open Space of the EC Representation in the CR in April 2026. Photo by Lucie Urban.

Examples of use:

1. What European topics should be communicated in Czechia, and how, to be genuinely understandable, trustworthy, and relevant to everyone? Open Space for 30 influencers working with the European Commission in the Czech Republic.
2. How to get children outside? Open Space with the Karel Komárek Family Foundation and 50 representatives of kindergartens, schools, local authorities, and others working on outdoor learning for children.