Birgitt Williams, co-founder of the Genuine Contact program, created this method for facilitating meetings in 1993. At the time, she was CEO of a multi service health and social service, was involved in leading her organization through an organization wide transformation process of merging three business units successfully into one corporation, and was making frequent use of Open Space Technology meetings to provide opportunities for maximum participation and engagement of the workforce and community stakeholders. Open Space Technology meetings worked for some purposes. However, other meetings required a method that were more guided while still offering maximum choice and freedom to participants. In other words, a more guided meeting process was needed that was congruent in values to Open Space Technology so that the two meeting methods could achieve a congruent and synergistic approach for workforce and community engagement. When Birgitt could not find an appropriate meeting methodology, she created one based on learning she had done from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and one of its graduates, Dr. Marge Dennis of Huntsville, Ontario, Canada. She developed Whole Person Process Facilitation and from 1993 through 1999 tested it with her organization and hundreds of others to fine tune it for consistent and sustainable results. Birgitt and Ward Williams then included it in the Genuine Contact program to provide a meeting method that was focused on assisting meeting participants find organizational solutions and with frequent use, to become a solution focused organization. They also included this meeting method as ideal for use for the planning, debrief and accountability meetings in working with an Open Space Technology meeting.
Dalar International Consultancy, Inc will facilitate Whole Person Process Faciltiation meetings with as few as six people, to as many as one hundred and twenty people, anywhere in the world. Generally about six hours of planning time is needed, with some logistics follow up before the meeting; a debrief meeting with the sponsor after the meeting; and guidance for an accountability meeting regarding results to take place four to six months after the meeting.
Free Resources
What is Whole Person Process Facilitation? Download Here
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