Art of Hosting

Introduction

In a nutshell ?

The Art of Hosting is the art of having conversations that matter.

Can you elaborate on that ?

Not really. It is an Art , which means that it is not something precise. To me it is a bit like martial arts. You can describe the technique you use, but the real transformation process of a practionner cannot be explained. I found AoH to be very much like it. The techniques are the equivalent of the Katas . Katas in Karate are a string of movements that you execute against an imaginary opponent. When you begin, you struggle just to remember what the next move is. As time and practice go by, you start "feeling" the kata in your bones, and you suddenly see all the possible applications. I felt the same with the AoH techniques. At first you desperately try to remember what the possible roles in a OST are, and then one day you reach a tipping point, where it all begins to make sense, and it just flows.
I am afraid this means that reading this whole website will not automagically transform you in a qualified practionner, but hopefully it may help :-).

This epub

I discovered the Art of Hosting (AoH in short) via its European Commission incarnation, called the Art of Participatory Leadership (AoPL), in 2010. (The name change is purely cosmetic and both are the same thing).
While I only had my formal training in 2011, I was already familiar with many concepts before that. I became an Action Learning facilitator in 2008, roughly at the time AoH entered the Commission, and the two communities were very linked.
I originally stored the information which is in this epub on the Commission internal wiki. It started as a simple place for me to remember things (which, by the way, explains why things are not always credited (*) ). However, I have the privilege to practice AoH by facilitating events and meetings, but also to co-host seminars to train others to become practitionners. Moving everything to a place anybody could access was therefore the next logical step. I then transformed my website into an epub.

So here it is. My point is not to be exhaustive on every technique, but rather to help people remember what a given technique is, and give pointers for further exploration or ressources.
Don't hesitate to contact me if you want to add and share things.

You can find me on  as @spock444

Important note: This is a work in progress 

It is revision 20130908-01. Check the website for the latest version.

The whole content of this epub is under CC licence licence.

(*) Many things came originally from various WikiPedia articles and the Art of Hosting website. Some were re-worked or simplified. Much comes from articles I curate on scoop.it .

Art of Hosting: Core Concepts

Chaordic Path and Chaordic Stepstones

Chaordic Path

As said AoH is concerned with flux of change.
There is a path between Chaos and Order that leads us to new, collective learning. It is called the "ChaOrdic" path. AoH techniques help us travel this Chaordic path.

Chaordic Stepstones

There are clear strategic steps we can take when walking the Chaordic path. These steps are a way of bringing just enough structure or order into the chaos to keep us moving forward on the chaordic path. These steps allow us to progress gradually giving our project or organisation more form as we progress from Chaos to Order (and before the cycle starts again).
Each of these stepping stones is activated by asking key questions. As we design our work together we will select from these questions (or design others) to help us explore each stone as we lay it in place.

The Steps are:

identifying the need

formulating a purpose

defining the principles that help guide us towards our goal

Making sure we have the right people

defining a concept

Finding what is limiting

giving it more structure

moving into practice.

These steps can be used both as a planning tool and to help understand what you are discovering about an organisation, community or initiative.
When we get to the point of designing structure, we can chart our meeting out using a simple table to ensure that the integrity of the design is fully incorporated:

Time/Day
Need/Purpose
Activity
Harvest
Notes

Harvest

There is no point in doing work unless we plan to harvest the results.
Harvesting includes making meaning of our work, telling the story and feeding forward our results so that they have the desired impacts in the world.
What are the forms of harvest from our work that best serves the need?
It is very important to note that harvesting is an activity that needs to be planned up front, in the spirit of " we are not planning a meeting, we are planning a harvest ."
This is a shortened version of a document created by Chris Corrigan and refined by the Art of Hosting community of practice.

The Chaordic process is in continual motion, each step integrating and including the previous steps. It is an iterative, non-linear process supported by an ongoing harvest and feedback loop. Once you have defined the principles you check back if they support the purpose etc. The process allows us to be able to remain in both reflection and practice.

Diamond of Participation and Five (Six) breaths

Diamond of Participation

Each event follows a pattern that we need to know and recognize. It helps us plan the activities and prepare for the reactions of our group. This pattern is valid not only for the group reactions during the event, but also for the people who are preparing, when they are preparing.
There are 3 phases:

Divergence : Explosion of Energy. Liberation. Motor gets running.

Emergence : All Energy has been released. Chaos. Groan zone. Turbulence. Ideas all over the place. Fight.

Convergence : Calm is coming. Structure settles back in. Some agreement is profiling.

(This was drawn by Jean-Luc at the Liège seminar on 20120705)

Five (Six) Breaths

It is basically a variation on the above, mostly when preparing an event:

First breath: CALL

Second breath: CLARIFY

Third breath: INVITE

Fourth breath: MEET

Fifth breath: ACT

(Sixth breath: that holds them all)

Four fold practice

Be Present - Pre-sensing - host yourself first - discern between re-action and contribution to the whole - be willing to sit in the chaos - keep the space open - sit in the fire of the present and the not-knowing

Practice conversation - Participate - be willing to listen fully, respectfully, without judgement and thinking you already know all the answers - contribute your bit of wisdom

Hosting Conversations - Contribute - be courageous, inviting and willing to initiate conversations that matter - find and host powerful question with the stakeholders - then make sure you harvest the answers, the patterns, insights and learnings into wise actions

Community of Practitioners - Co-create - be willing to co-create and co-host with others, blending your knowing, experience and practices with theirs, working partnership.

Art of Hosting: Core Techniques

Circle

The circle is probably the most ancient technique of them all.
Often underused, can be extremely powerful.

Harvesting

I know some people will be surprised to see harvesting listed as the second core technique. However, I believe we host conversation that matters with a purpose. If the content of those conversations is lost, it seems to me it kind of misses the point. That said, the harvesting does not have to be something very formal, specially if the purpose is limited to the participants to the process. For me, ideally harvesting must be a part of the activity / technique, and flow almost naturally from it and within it.

Graphical Harvesting

If you are good at drawing, that is a very nice way to capture the gist of what has been said. In AL parlance, it's "the big picture". Also called Graphic recording or Strategic Illustration , it is done in real time. Does not have to be drawings, it can be words as well.

Collective Story harvesting (6 Arcs)

For group: each group concentrate on a specific aspect:

calling question,

assumption,

discovery

etc.

Mind Maps

Is the art of drawing a map, either with drawing or word, to express visually the relationship between the concept which have been expressed.
It can be done by hand or with a specialized software.
I use Thinkingspace (for the OST or AI mm below), an Android application which unfortunately no longer exists on Play, replaced by Mindjet . MindmapMemo is a suitable replacement. It exports to Freemind format.
For the iphone, alternatives are MindMeister (Free with limited functionality) or iBlueSky (Commercial by Tenero Software Limited).

For the desktop, you can use: freemind (my favorite), xmind (not bad either) or mindmaster. All those are free. See the Bag of Treats for more links on MindMapping.
MindMapping can also be done collectively, with people then voting on the various branches.

Notes / Harvesting sheets

Specially with big groups or when time is limited, I like using a single word harvesting. It forces people to really focus on what matters most for them. The resulting cards can then be grouped on a wall, or fed into a wordle generator. This is the (tweaked) wordle result of this page:

Taking pictures

The said wall can then be photographed for later analysis :-)

Slam

Just because I saw Tim Merry doing it. Of course I can't :-)

Insert your pet technique here

Whatever. What matters is that you keep a trace and act on it.

Cafés

World Café

Prepare one or several questions, one per table.

3 rounds of 20 minutes,

people move from table to table,

host stays and explains his/her question and where they are so far.

Host can change next round.

Main idea is to try and link all subjects

Pro Action Café

Small group, one "projet owner" per group. OST-like session first to define sessions and owners
3 rounds of 20 minutes, people move from table to table (normally max 4)

what is the quest behind the question

what is missing

what is the next elegant step

Open Space technology

Harrison Owen.

Actors:

sponsor
    facilitator
    host
    participant
    butterfly
    bumblebee

Principles:

Law of two feet

Whomever is there is the right person

Whatever happens was to happen

Whenever it starts is the right time

When it's over it's over

Matrix:

Time | Place A | Place B | PlaceC
9-12 | Who | Sophie | Edith
What | Stick a Ted | Your Books
14-17 | Christa |  |
Leasing |  |

Appreciative Inquiry

Instead of focusing on what goes wrong, focus on what goes right.
         Two basic principles:

Look for what works and amplify it

4 Ds :

Describe (Discover): The identification of organizational processes that work well.

Dream : The envisioning of processes that would work well in the future.

Design : Planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.

Deploy (Destiny / Deliver): The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.

I have successfully stopped the process after the first D and used that as a basis for another technique, either a café or an Open Space.

Art of Hosting: Additional Concepts

Cynefin

The Cynefin framework has five domains. The first four domains are:

Simple , in which the relationship between cause and effect is obvious to all, the approach is to Sense - Categorise - Respond and we can apply best practice.

Complicated , in which the relationship between cause and effect requires analysis or some other form of investigation and/or the application of expert knowledge, the approach is to Sense - Analyze - Respond and we can apply good practice.

Complex , in which the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance, the approach is to Probe - Sense - Respond and we can sense emergent practice.

Chaotic , in which there is no relationship between cause and effect at systems level, the approach is to Act - Sense - Respond and we can discover novel practice.

The fifth domain is Disorder, which is the state of not knowing what type of causality exists, in which state people will revert to their own comfort zone in making a decision. In full use, the Cynefin framework has sub-domains, and the boundary between simple and chaotic is seen as a catastrophic one: complacency leads to failure.

Theory U

Otto Scharmer
The seven stages consist of:

(Factual/phenomenal level, technical and instrumental subsystem) Observation of phenomena. How do processes and workflows function? Instruments, resources.

(Imaginative level, social subsystem) Forming a picture of how the organisation works. Understanding the social subsystem and how functions, roles and management are distributed.

("Inspirational" level; cultural subsystem) Idea. Understanding the implicit/actual values, rules and policies that shape the organisation. How and why things happen.

Is this what we want?

(This maps onto 3.) What values and guidelines do we want for the future?

(This maps onto 2.) What does that mean for new functions and roles? How should the organisation of the future be visioned?

(This maps onto 1.) How can processes be developed in future? What phenomena and facts will characterise the organisation of the future?

Two Loops theory

This is Berkana's Theory of Change. I like it because it is simple, elegant, and explains very well not only how the world works, but what our role in it can be as facilitator of change.
The theory is that as a system nears its peak, the new system starts being born. People drop out and walk out, innovating something new. Not everyone walks out of the current system, not everyone can. Some are needed to stay behind and maintain excellence as best as they can. I think of school teachers who know so painfully that the system is broken yet return day after day to do their best to support the kids. The leadership role here is to name what is going on with the walk outs, and the realization that others who have also walked out are also doing this contributes to the energy of emergence.

(This was rescooped from Amanda Fenton's website)

Art of Hosting: Additional Techniques

Introduction

Some of the techniques presented here are very close to the core of Aoh (basically the first two rows). Others, like Opera, are coming straight from the "problem solving" world. I still believe they have their place here because the underlying concept is the same (let's find a solution all together).

Simple Design

The simplest design, according to Chris Corrigan:

Talking Piece

Have one :-)

CheckIn/CheckOut

Checking In

Checking is done to put people "in the mood". Sample questions:

How am I feeling today
    Why are we are for
    One keyword which defines my relation to the project

This allows all the participants to take conscience of what state they are in, and to make sure they have a common purpose.

Checking Out

Sample questions:

How am I feeling now
    What am I taking away with me

I like the "one word" because you can then feed it into a wordle 

Sharp Questions

Wicked Questions

This is a game that prepares for powerful question and/or AL.
        People are in groups of 5, 3 seated, two observers standing.
        Everybody has prepared a question.
       One of the people seated read his questions and the other two ask questions in turn to clarify things or make the owner think.
 At any moment one of the observer can replace one of the seated people by tapping on her shoulder.
After a given time, they turn to the next seated person question.

Powerful Questions

Or open question are why, when, how,who, etc. The previous game and AL make extensive use of powerful questions. It takes a while to learn to use and formulate them, but they are an essential tool of the trade. Questions can be used at any time to clarify purpose (stepping stones), to get the circle to think, or needed in Appreciative Inquiry or in the preparation phase of a constellation.
The art of powerful question (french version)

Action Learning

Actors:

problem owner
    facilitator
    scribe

assumptions
    powerful questions

big picture

20' then how are we doing
    rephrase question
    20'

Story telling

The idea being that this is coupled with a group harvesting .

Landscape

The landscape is a graphical representation of the day / workshop / seminar. It is meant to be a replacement for agendas. Usually a big drawing with simple symbols like a path, a stream:
I am forever in debt to Monica who showed me that even I could draw simple things to illustrate/create a landscape.

Six Thinking hats (deBono hats)

Ritual Dissent

small groups of 3-5 per table.
First round to find solution and elect representative.
Representative then change table and explains to the next table what his group found (in 3 min)
Then table bashes (dissent) or improves (assent)
Aleternately, you can have a project owner explaining his project to the group, then having the group shredding it to pieces. This works best when you have several projects submitted in parallel, then rotating.
I have seen the technique used in two different ways:
1) letting people freely choose between dissent and assent
2)Forcing a dissent round, then an assent
I like the latter better. I found out that when people have discharged the negative energy, they are usually more creative in the assenting phase.
For me this is a simplified version of the De Bono Hats.

Opera

Opera is a very simple way to produce quickly a consensus.

People work on their O wn to find a certain number of answers.
They work in P air and have to produce the same number (ie each must give and take, unless there is common ground.
Answers are put on the wall and E xplained to the group by each pair.
Answers are R ated by each pair, with a certain number of votes and interdiction to vote for your solution.
Solutions are A ggregated and sorted to define the winners

That's it. you have a rating of what is most important for everybody in the room !

Graphic facilitation

Divide participants in smaller groups
Each group futher divided into 4 subgroup
Subgroup A and B, independently, illustrate on flipchart barriers to implementation
Subgroup C and D, independently, illustrate on flipchart helpers to implementation
Each subgroup appoints 2 hosts

Hosts stay with their flipcharts, all other swap group barriers => helpers and vice-versa
Team C must identify and resolve barriers identified by A. Hosts harvest solution. Ditto for D/B
Team A must identify helpers drawn by C and determine how to implement them. Hosts harvest solution. Ditto for B/D.
Hosts records ideas and ask teams to vote on best in each group

Host work together (A and B, C and D) to consolidate the top voted ideas on flipcharts and present later in plenary

Constellation

In a Systemic Constellation, the host first talks to the problem owner to try and identify the elements that constitute the problem. Then the people present in the room are asked to represent the different elements and to freely react (as an improvisation) while the host and the problem owner sit back. The idea is that

The participants will somehow sense what the elements they represent would do and act like it and
the free interaction of the problem elements will give the problem owner the solution (s)he needs.

The hosts can ask at any moment elements in or out of the re-enactment.

Communities of Practice

Sharing with other practitionners.

Art of Hosting: TidBits

Ice-breakers and various Activities

Rope dance

4 levels of hello

Time placement

Geographical placement

Animals: Find / draw logo and motto

Links

Generic Aoh:

Art of hosting

Art of Hosting Toolkit

Art of hosting

Art of hosting (scoop.it)

Art of hosting (fr)

AoPL and Hosting daily

MindMapping:

Freemind

FreePlane

XMind

Mind42

MindMup

Coggle

Popplet

MindJet

MindmapMemo

Excellent MM site en espagnol

Text to Mindmap give ascii text and get a mind map!

11 Free Mind Mapping Applications & Web Services

30+ Mind Mapping Tools

Die 10 besten Programme, um Mind Maps zu erstellen

15 Great Mindmapping Tools and Apps

Software for mindmapping and information organisation

Café:

Pro action café

Open Space:

Chris Corrigan's website

Communities of Practice:

HBS ressource

A definition

Ressources

Wordle generator:

Worditout

Tag crowd

Wordsift

Tag-Cloud (swf)

Image Chef (limited)

ABC Ya

How to prepare ?

This is always a favorite of OST theme, so i'll repeat a couple of things:

Know the purpose

Never work alone

That's it. Sounds simple, right ?
Well it isn't. I could give you dozens of examples where even inside the host group we didn't have clarity about the purpose. I remember fierce discussions with co-hosts after interviewing some of the actors in preparation for the seminar, where obviously their wishes were contradictory to what our client wanted. I remember walking out of a project because the caller changed the scope and the purpose at the last minute.
Sounds bad ? Well it is. It is part of my rules. If we don't agree on what we are doing this for, there is no point doing it. Period.
On most of the rest (except harvesting), i'm quite easy-going :-)

Once you have a clarity on the purpose, the "how to get there" will fall in place pretty much by itself with a back-and-forth check on the constraints (or not ?).

An event is usually hosted by a team. I'm lucky because I usually work with big team (4-8 people). It is great, but it requires a higher degree of organisation. And of course, we don't all live in the same place (or in the same countries for that matter).
Over time, I have put together a list of tools which are useful to enable collaborative work in those conditions.
Typically I set up the mindmap first and invite the members of the team. We use it to jot down ideas, in our own time or all together while we do a collective call. Here is my checklist. None of those is essential, all are useful.

Disclaimer: I'm a computer scientist. I manage several internet domains. I can create a website with a wiki and dedicated mailing list in a matter of minutes. I understand not everybody can do that, but it is no reason not to list the ressources here as well :-).

This is not an endorsement of any of the products. Batteries not included. Some assembly required. Your mileage may vary. Pictures not contractual. etc.

D
What
Example
Remarks

Cheap written Communication

email

Lino it

Trello

Lino it is a post-it board. public or with groups. Simple as a post-it. Not really documents, not really wiki. Impossible to classify, but super-easy. Free registration.
Trello is similar.

Cheap oral communication

Physical meeting

FriendCallers

Skype

TowTruck

Friendcallers runs in any browser in a vpn (ie: not detected)
Skype needs to be installed (you need admin rights ) and uses a specific protocol which is not allowed in some workplaces.
You can install Towtruck[chat] yourself

Common Mindmap

Mind42

MindMup

Coggle

Subtask

Popplet

Rather than circulate files. Requires a free account.

Common documents

Your organisation internal wiki ?

Google docs

DropBox

Skydrive

EduPad

Rather than circulate files. Require a free account.
EduPad provides real time editor for up to 15 people.

Collaborative environment

Blue mind

La totale / the full monty - of course also free

Wiki

Your organisation internal wiki ?

Tiddlywiki

Triki-Wiki

Tiddly is a one-file wiki. Just upload the html file to your private website, and off you go.
Triki is much more complete and powerfull, but requires longer to install and customize.

Project management

Collabtive

Project O' RIA

ProjectForge

TeamSpark

Collabtive is limited in the free version, but probably more than enough.
O'RIA is more complete, but takes longer to install
ProjectForge is VERY complete, but harder to customize.
Teamspark is not ready for primetime, but shows nice promises if you have the time to install it.

Collaborative environment

Dotmocracy

Dotmocracy is a transparent, equal opportunity, and participatory large group decision-making tool Seems promising, but untested. If you have used it, please contact me :-)

Unclassified

Flask

Simplest to-do list. no registration, share by url

Legend:
easy

medium

difficult

Simple experimental collaborative environment

Using simple Javascript/Html tools, you can create very easily your own collaborative environment. (If you don't have your own webpage, you can get one at Weebly).

Chat

For the chat, use Mozilla's TowTruck; You simply need to include

<script src="https://towtruck.mozillalabs.com/towtruck.js"></script>

in your <head> section, and then in the <body>

<button onclick="TowTruck(this); return false;">Start/Stop Chat</button>

That's it. Can't get any simpler than that. No more relying on skype or any external stuff: your very own chat system. Just make sure that participants put their name in the settings, otherwise you will get a default assigned by the system (seal hunter, wild shark, etc)
Tow Truck
Just send the link to the other members of the group.

Board

Next thing you need is a common pin board. Get a free account at Lino it.
Next create a canevas (say "Collaborate"). Finally, insert the reference to your canvas in your page:

<div>
<iframe src="http://linoit.com/users/XYourNameX/canvases/Collaborate?inner=1" scrolling="no" frameBorder="0"
style="width:640px;height:480px;border:1px solid black;">
</iframe></div>

That's it. you have your page with chat and common pinboard.