Organa Unconference

Once a year we do an internal unconference, in Australia.

An unconference comes with no predefined agenda, no predefined list of speakers, and no slides. We figure that out, together, in real time.

Think of it as an alternative to a conference. If the purpose of a conference is to collaborate and communicate, then an unconference will often fulfill the same purpose in a more simple, fun, and effective way!

For details, check the ebook How to run an internal conference.

Why we do conferences

Face-to-face is the most effective way to get to know each other, spread knowledge, solve problems, and make decisions. Unfortunately, since we are members and work with different clients, we rarely naturally meet as a big group. So that’s the purpose of the unconference - to get everyone together!

Where do we go?

Varies. We don’t have a “norm” yet. It’s been Australia so far but odds are it’ll be overseas as some point in the near future.

Does everyone have to attend?

More or less, yes. We haven’t made it a formal rule, but implicitly people are expected to attend “most” conferences (sometimes Life gets in the way and that’s OK). This is our most important team activity, and all high-impact decisions happen there. We also get to know each other better, build trust, trade knowledge, and have lots of fun!

Basically, the conference is where the Organa DNA strengthens and evolves!

The conference cost (travel, hotel, etc) is split evenly between all advisers, whether or not you attend. That way there’s not much economic incentive to skip the conference (as in “I’m a bit low on cash now, so I’m skipping the conference”). You pay either way so you might as well attend :)

In practice attendance has not been a problem so far. We usually have at least 90% of the company there, and our surveys show that people appreciate the conferences. Also, our happiness index usually makes a small jump up after each conference (since we often solve some of the pain points that the happiness survey revealed).

Guiding principles

Most of our conference is based on the Open Space format.

That means the only real rule is the Law of 2 feet. Our version of it is: “if you aren’t contributing or learning or having fun where you stand now, use your two feet (and go somewhere where you can contribute or learn or have fun)!”

Other guiding principles (we vary them a bit, but this should give you the general idea):

What’s the conference format?

Normally 2 days of conferencing with a break in the middle. For the shorter trips, the break is usually an afternoon or evening of activities and relaxing. For the longer trips, it’s usually a full day of touristy stuff.

The break in the middle is very important. Quite often some hairy complicated issue is uncovered on day 1, then day 2 people are chatting about while doing touristy things, and over dinner, and sleeping on it, etc. Then on day 3 we get back together and have lots of ideas and insights, and can make good decisions!

Here’s a summary of what we typically do on a conference day:

1. Do some lightning talks, or short team-building activities to get everyone inspired

2. Present the format and Brainstorm topics

Gather everyone in a ring. Present the open space format & today’s theme (sometimes we have a theme, sometimes not). Show the empty schedule grid, and ask people to suggest topics and write on stickies.

3. Create a schedule

Ask the people who suggested topics to organize them into the schedule grid. Left-to-right are all the locations in the room, and up-to-down are all the time slots (usually 30-60 minutes each). And a small section to capture “mini-topics” for when we all gather at the end.

4. Breakouts!

Now everyone knows approximately what’s happening when & where! The schedule is a guide, not a hard constraint. Lots of other interesting and unplanned topics are going to pop up here and there. Let people self-organize for the next few hours, using the Law of 2 Feet. Make sure there is plenty of snacks, fruit, coffee & drink around.

5. Gather up for summaries and decisions

One hour before the end, gather everyone back into the ring. For each topic, ask someone to do a 2 minute summary of what came out. Collect key decisions/actions on the wall. Ask if anyone else has anything to say, or if there are any decisions that need to be made while we are all gathered.

We have a consensus-based decision model.

Finally we wrap up by asking people to share their key take-aways from the day.

Sample schedule

Our larger unconferences usually look something like this:

… and a typical conference day:

Who organises and facilitates the conference?

Currently we volunteer amongst ourselves. The conference days are facilitated by a pair of Organa Members. Usually we rotate one person after every conference - the goal is that each conference should have one facilitator from last conference, and one that is new. That way the facilitator pair has experience from last conference, but also some new insights.

We’re lucky in that many Members work as coaches and have lots of facilitation experience. Of course, the downside is that it’s sometimes challenging to facilitate other experienced facilitators! We sometimes slip into meta-discussions about how we should do stuff, rather than just doing it :)

Sometimes we bring an external guest to do a talk or facilitate some specific topic in the conference.

Why do we use this format?

Key benefits (compared to a more traditional conference structure):

We sometimes try other (less open) formats, and it’s good to vary a bit. But we keep gravitating back to the open-space format, because the law of 2 feet is just such a powerful thing!