The planning workshop
We conducted our workshop at Työ2.0Lab, an open space available free of charge to all Finnish public employees and their partners. How fabulous!
Our folks at OneTeamGov Finland had prepared the agenda: Determine time and place for our unconference, figure out the format, agree on the theme, and sketch a program outline. The atmosphere was amiable and we easily exchanged ideas and found consensus. Around 10 adhocratic bureaucrats enthusiastically started planning a Nordic OneTeamGov event for June 5th in Stockholm.
We developed a master plan for the event, establishing goals and objectives, and shared responsibility for the various tasks at hand, including arrangement of sponsorship, ticket management, marketing, and more…
The format of the “unconference” will most likely follow the Open space methodology with breakout sessions for various topics, where will use different techniques such as Lean coffee, Liberating structures, Lego serious play, etc. to challenge known approaches to how we traditionally work in the public sector.
The main theme will be “crossing borders”, which is derived from one of the OneTeamGov principles “Work across borders”. We might be talking about national borders, professional boundaries, and organisational silos. The participants come from various organisations, disciplines, and regions with a common interest: to improve public services and change the way we work.
And then there was sauna
Of course, when in Finland… you grab a beer, strip, and get cooking. Full disclosure: There were two saunas. After finding our limits for sauna (speaking of going beyond borders), we carried on with planning until we absolutely had to vacate the premises, and followed through with a visit to one of the bars in Kallio — the area to go to in Helsinki. If anyone tells you that Finns are introvert, silent, or hard to make friends with… Not true.
Moving forward
We will host a series of meetups this spring where you’ll meet people from different groups, where everyone contributes with their expertise and raises issues, sets direction and suggests activities that will help us build bridges across said boundaries.
Save the date, you won’t want to miss this! See you in Stockholm on June 5th!
