World Cafe Metholodolgy

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Contents

World Cafe Group Interaction Methodology

Introduction

[A general introduction to the topic – no more than 1-2 paragraphs]

Keywords

worldcafe facilitation change largegroup

Detailed Description

[the meat of the topic – clearly, crisply communicated summary of the topic. Where relevant, a brief story – no more than 1-2 paragraphs - of how this topic has been turned into practice, ideally from the KM4Dev archives? If the example is long, separate into a separate subsection]

KM4Dev Discussions

[Summary of the discussions on the KM4Dev list which provided source material. People who contributed to the discussions are cited at the end of the section in italics: "The following members of the KM4Dev community contributed to the discussion thread on ...: XY (launched the discussion), ...]

== Examples in Application ==

[One or a few practical examples and references that illustrate the topic or show how it is done in practice]

Related FAQs

[Insert links to related FAQs]

Further Information

Original Author and Subsequent Contributors of this FAQ

Dates of First Creation and Further Revisions

  • Started from email thread April 22, 2006

FAQ KM4Dev Source Materials

From: "Staiger, Simone CIAT To: "KM for Development" <km4dev-l@dgroups.org>

Dear all,

next month we will present the Knowledge Sharing Project of the CGIAR ICT-KM Program at the IAALD (International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists) conference in Nairobi during a one-day workshop with approx. 40 participants.

We plan to have a world café session in the afternoon, with the aim to share and exchange ideas on knowledge sharing in research organizations. I would love to get some advice from experienced practitioners of the world café dynamic. I have participated in one so far and never organized one myself.

What are some main conditions for success? (logistical, participants, atmosphere)? What do we need to avoid? How specific should the question or session framework should be?

I am looking forward to read you!

Simone

Subject: [km4dev-l] Re: advice on worldcafé methodology To: "KM for Development" <km4dev-l@dgroups.org> From: Marc Steinlin

Dear Simone,

I have recently used it in a strategy development workshop to create a common understanding of what should be done. It worked great, because actually everybody in the room was able to talk to everybody (due to recomposed groups in each round) on every issue (we had about 25 persons and 3 topics, which resulted in 3 groups x 3 rounds). At the end there was quite large consensus in the team on the major axes of the strategy.

We had a "mathematical" rotation plan: After round 1, we split each of the groups and they had to go to a different table for round 2. After round 2, they had to go to the 3rd table they hadn't been yet. This worked very well. Of course with more people / topics / rounds, it will become more complex.

Here you find a good site on the WorldCafé facilitation method: http://theworldcafe.com/index.html

especially a 6-page guide on the why and how: http://theworldcafe.com/cafetogo.pdf

Warm regards & have fun using it! -marc

To: "KM for Development" <km4dev-l@dgroups.org> From: Nancy White Subject: [km4dev-l] Re: [km4dev-l] Re: advice on worldcafé 

methodology

One more resource. There is an online community of World Cafe practitioners at http://www.theworldcafecommunity.net/

Ask your question there and you may also get some great feedback.

Nancy

Subject: [km4dev-l] RE: [km4dev-l] advice on world café methodology From: "Sibrenne Wagenaar" To: "KM for Development" <km4dev-l@dgroups.org>

Dear Simone,

Exciting idea to use the world cafe methodology in the project you mention! I do have some experience with world cafe - kind of methods. In preparing myself for using the methodology I read the book about World Cafe, written by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs. Do you know it? This book is full of concrete suggestions, examples, experiences. I found it very useful. And there is a website: www.theworldcafe.com.

Some experiences from my side: - designing the question is very important. It should be a question that is challenging, inspiring, without an answer yet. - it might be wortwhile to involve some participants in preparing the workshop. Together you can design the questions for the worldcafe. - the process in the groups in very interesting: from sharing experiences towards deeper understanding and learning. You might direct this process by using specific focus in each round. In an informal kind of way.Talking about 'active listening', 'asking open questions'. - and the atmosphere is very important. Drinks during the world cafe, served by a waiter. Flowers on the table. Cartoons hanging in the room to stimulate thinking. etc.

Is this helpful?

Sibrenne

To: "KM for Development" <km4dev-l@dgroups.org> From: "S.Shrestha" Subject: [km4dev-l] RE: [km4dev-l] advice on world 

café methodology

Dear Simone,

In Bellanet Steering Committee Meeting, we also used the World Cafe methodology. It was indeed a good tool to faciliate the sharing process. We also referred different websites as mentioned by Sibrenne. Some other website that can be http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-worldcafe.html, http://pioneersofchange.net/library/books/worldcafe.

The seven design principles of World Café as mentioned by Juanita Brown and David are

  • Set the context
  • Create hospitable space
  • Explore questions that matter
  • Encourage everyone's contribution
  • Cross-pollinate and connect diverse perspectives
  • Listen together for patterns, insights, and deeper questions
  • Harvest and share collective discoveries

However, some of the preliminary preparations before the event based on the above mentioned principles helped us in increasing effectiveness of the tool. We discussed amongst our team members about what is the story we want to share during the cafe session. We prepared the table in such a way that it created the hospitable scenario with some coffee as well as some materials that showed the difference of the regional setting i.e Asia, Latin America and Africa. These setting of the tables with different cultural items also helped the people to see that each and every region in the world are different. So, depending on the message we want to share we need to set our setting of the cafe. Therefore, identifying some key messages are also helpful.

We also need to analyze the contribution of the participants. As in other tools we also need to raise interest of the passive listeners by raising some of the queries. In this case, we had selected the volunteer who will be the story teller in each cafe but sometimes the discussion emerged in such a way that the whole group became vibrant in discussion. Therefore, it is also better to persuade dialogue than monologue.

Hope it helped,

Shikha

Original Message-----

From: Dorine Rüter [1] Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 4:17 AM To: KM for Development Subject: [km4dev-l] RE: [km4dev-l] advice on world café methodology

Dear Simone and others,


Just this month a publication with the title Mapping Dialogue was published on the website of Pioneers of Change. In this document a lot of tools for facilitating dialogue are described, with per tool an overview, applications, case example, commentary and resources. One of the tools is the World Café (but there’s also Open Space Technology, Change Lab, Future Search, Scenario Planning and a lot of others). Though the tools are only described in a few pages, the cases mentioned are often related to development settings and therefore might you a clear picture?


The document (a result of a project of Pioneers of Change and GTZ) can be downloaded here:

http://pioneersofchange.net/library/dialogue/Dialogue%20Project%20V%202.0b.pdf

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