OST meaning in Computing ?

Open Space Technology (OST) is a method for organizing and running a meeting or multi-day conference, where participants have been invited in order to focus on a specific, important task or purpose.

In contrast with pre-planned conferences where who will speak at which time is scheduled often months in advance, and therefore subject to many changes, OST sources participants once they are physically present at the live event venue. In this sense OST is participant-driven and less organizer-convener-driven. Pre-planning remains essential; you simply need much less pre-planning.

The actual agenda-schedule of presentations is partly or mostly unknown until people begin arriving. The scheduling of which talk, on which topic in which room is created by people attending, once they arrive. At the end of each OST meeting, a debriefing doc is created summarizing what worked and what did not work so the process can go more smoothly next year.

OST began with efforts in the 1980s, by Harrison Owen. It was one of the top ten organization development tools cited between 2004 and 2013.