© 2002 Whole Systems Associates. Please feel free to copy and distribute with acknowledgement of The World Café
Community as author.
The World Café Presents…
A quick reference guide for putting conversations to work…
© 2002 Whole Systems Associates. Please feel free to copy and distribute with acknowledgement of The World Café
Community as author.
Café Guidelines
Conducting an exciting Café Conversation is not hard—it’s limited only by your imagination! The Café
format is flexible and adapts to many different circumstances. When these guidelines are used in
combination, they foster collaborative dialogue, active engagement and constructive possibilities for
action.
Clarify the Purpose
Pay attention early to the reason you are bringing people together. Knowing the purpose
of your meeting enables you to consider which participants need to be there and what
parameters are important to achieve your purpose.
Create a Hospitable Space
Café hosts around the world emphasize the power and importance of creating a
hospitable space—one that feels safe and inviting. When people feel comfortable to be
themselves, they do their most creative thinking, speaking, and listening. In particular,
consider how your invitation and your physical set-up contribute to creating a
welcoming atmosphere.
Explore Questions that Matter
Finding and framing questions that matter to those who are participating in your Café
is an area where thought and attention can produce profound results. Your Café may
only explore a single question, or several questions may be developed to support a
logical progression of discovery throughout several rounds of dialogue. In many
cases, Café conversations are as much about discovering and exploring powerful
questions as they are about finding effective solutions.
Encourage Everyone's Contribution
As leaders we are increasingly aware of the importance of participation, but most
people don’t only want to participate, they want to actively contribute to making a
difference. It is important to encourage everyone in your meeting to contribute their
ideas and perspectives, while also allowing anyone who wants to participate by
simply listening to do so.
Connect Diverse Perspectives
The opportunity to move between tables, meet new people, actively contribute your
thinking, and link the essence of your discoveries to ever-widening circles of thought
is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Café. As participants carry key ideas
or themes to new tables, they exchange perspectives, greatly enriching the possibility
for surprising new insights.
Listen for Insights and Share Discoveries
Through practicing shared listening and paying attention to themes, patterns and
insights, we begin to sense a connection to the larger whole. After several rounds of
conversation, it is helpful to engage in a whole group conversation. This offers the
entire group an opportunity to connect the overall themes or questions that are now
present.
© 2002 Whole Systems Associates. Please feel free to copy and distribute with acknowledgement of The World Café
Community as author.
Café Conversations at a Glance
Seat four or five people at small Café-style tables or in conversation clusters.
Set up progressive (usually three) rounds of conversation of approximately 20-30 minutes each.
Questions or issues that genuinely matter to your life, work or community are engaged while other
small groups explore similar questions at nearby tables.
Encourage both table hosts and members to write, doodle and draw key ideas on their tablecloths or
to note key ideas on large index cards or placemats in the center of the group.
Upon completing the initial round of conversation, ask one person to remain at the table as the “host”
while the others serve as travelers or “ambassadors of meaning.” The travelers carry key ideas,
themes and questions into their new conversations.
Ask the table host to welcome the new guests and briefly share the main ideas, themes and questions of
the initial conversation. Encourage guests to link and connect ideas coming from their previous table
conversations—listening carefully and building on each other's contributions.
By providing opportunities for people to move in several rounds of conversation, ideas, questions, and
themes begin to link and connect. At the end of the second round, all of the tables or conversation
clusters in the room will be cross-pollinated with insights from prior conversations.
In the third round of conversation, people can return to their home (original) tables to synthesize their
discoveries, or they may continue traveling to new tables, leaving the same or a new host at the table.
Sometimes a new question that helps deepen the exploration is posed for the third round of
conversation.
After several rounds of conversation, initiate a period of sharing discoveries and insights in a whole
group conversation. It is in these town meeting-style conversations that patterns can be identified,
collective knowledge grows, and possibilities for action emerge.
Once you know what you want to achieve and the amount of time you have to work with, you can decide the
appropriate number and length of conversation rounds, the most effective use of questions and the most
interesting ways to connect and cross-pollinate ideas.
Cafe Etiquette
Focus on what matters.
Contribute your thinking.
Speak your mind and heart.
Listen to understand.
Link and connect ideas.
Listen together for insights and deeper questions.
Play, Doodle, Draw - writing on the tablecloths is encouraged!
Have fun!
© 2002 Whole Systems Associates. Please feel free to copy and distribute with acknowledgement of The World Café
Community as author.
The Importance of the Café Question(s)
The questions(s) you choose or that participants discover during a Café conversation are critical to its
success. Your Café may explore a single question or several questions may be developed to support a
logical progression of discovery throughout several rounds of dialogue.
5 Ways to Make Collective Knowledge Visible
Use a Graphic Recorder
In some Café events the whole group conversation is captured by a graphic recorder who draws
the group's ideas on flip charts or a wall mural using text and graphics to illustrate the patterns of
the conversation.
Take a Gallery Tour
At times, people will place the paper from their tables on the wall so members can take a tour of
the group's ideas during a break.
Post Your Insights
Participants can place large Post-Its®
with a single key insight on each on a blackboard, wall, etc.,
so that everyone can review the ideas during a break.
Create Idea Clusters
Group insights from the Post-Its into “affinity clusters” so that related ideas are visible and
available for planning the group's next steps.
Make a Story
Some Cafes create a newspaper or storybook to bring the results of their work to larger audiences
after the event. A visual recorder can create a picture book along with text as documentation.
Keep in mind that…
Well-crafted questions attract energy and focus
our attention to what really counts. Experienced
Café hosts recommend posing open-ended
questions—the kind that don’t have yes or no
answers
Good questions need not imply immediate
action steps or problem solving. They should
invite inquiry and discovery vs. advocacy and
advantage.
You’ll know you have a good question when it
continues to surface new ideas and possibilities.
Bounce possible questions off of key people
who will be participating to see if they sustain
interest and energy.
A Powerful Question
♦ Is simple and clear
♦ Is thought provoking
♦ Generates energy
♦ Focuses inquiry
♦ Surfaces unconscious assumptions
♦ Opens new possibilities
© 2002 Whole Systems Associates. Please feel free to copy and distribute with acknowledgement of The World Café
Community as author.
How to Create a Café Ambiance
Whether you are convening several dozen or several
hundred people, it is essential to create an environment
that evokes a feeling of both informality and intimacy.
When your guests arrive they should know immediately
that this is no ordinary meeting.
If possible, select a space with natural light and an
outdoor view to create a more welcoming
atmosphere.
Make the space look like an actual Café, with small
tables that seat four or five people. Less than four at a
table may not provide enough diversity of
perspectives, more than five limits the amount of
personal interaction.
Arrange the Cafe tables in a staggered, random
fashion rather than in neat rows. Tables in a sidewalk
café after it has been open for a few hours look
relaxed and inviting.
Use colorful tablecloths and a small vase of flowers
on each table. If the venue allows it add a candle to
each table. Place plants or greenery around the room.
Place at least two large sheets of paper over each
tablecloth along with a mug or wineglass filled with
colorful markers. Paper and pens encourage
scribbling, drawing, and connecting ideas. In this way
people will jot down ideas as they emerge.
Put one additional Café table in the front of the room
for the Host's and any presenter's material
Consider displaying art or adding posters to the walls
(as simple as flip chart sheets with quotes), and play
music as people arrive and you welcome them.
To honor the tradition of community and hospitality
provide beverages and snacks. A Café isn’t complete
without food and refreshments!
Use your imagination!
Be creative!
Café Supplies
Small round tables of 36 to 42 inches
are ideal, but small card tables will also
work.
Enough chairs for all participants and
presenters.
Colorful tablecloths.
Flipchart paper or paper placemats for
covering the café tables.
Colored water-based markers (so they
don’t bleed, Crayola®
and Mr. Sketch®
work well). For legibility use dark colors
such as green, black, blue and purple.
Add one or two bright colors to the cup
(red, light green, light blue, or orange)
for adding emphasis.
A vase with cut flowers, a mug or
wineglass per table for markers.
A side table for refreshments and
snacks.
Mural (6’ long x 48” tall) or flip chart
paper for making collective knowledge
visible and tape for hanging.
Flat wall space (minimum of 12’) or two
rolling white boards (4’x6’ each).
Additional wall (or window) space for
posting collective work and/or the work
of the tables.
Optional (depending on size and purpose)
Overhead projector & screen.
Sound system for tapes and/or CDs.
A selection of background music.
Wireless lavalieres for Café Hosts, and
handheld wireless microphones for
town meeting-style sessions.
Easels & flipcharts.
Basic supplies including stapler, paper
clips, rubber bands, markers, masking
tape, pens, push pins and pencils.
Colored 4x6 inch or 5x8 inch cards (for
personal note taking).
4x6 inch large Post-Its®
in bright colors
for posting of ideas.
© 2002 Whole Systems Associates. Please feel free to copy and distribute with acknowledgement of The World Café
Community as author.
I’m the Café Host, what do I do?
The job of the Café Host is to see that the six guidelines for dialogue and
engagement are put into action. It is not the specific form, but living the spirit
of the guidelines that counts. Hosting a Café requires thoughtfulness, artistry and
care. The Café Host can make the difference between an interesting conversation
and breakthrough thinking.
Work with the planning team to determine the
purpose of the Café and decide who should
be invited to the gathering.
Name your Café in a way appropriate to its
purpose, for example: Leadership Café;
Knowledge Café; Strategy Café; Discovery
Café, etc.
Help frame the invitation.
Work with others to create a comfortable Café
environment.
Welcome the participants as they enter.
Explain the purpose of the gathering.
Pose the question or themes for rounds of
conversation and make sure that the question
is visible to everyone on an overhead, flip
chart or on cards at each table.
Explain the Café guidelines and Café
Etiquette and post them on an overhead, an
easel sheet or on cards at each table.
Explain how the logistics of the Café will
work, including the role of the Table Host (the
person who will volunteer to remain at the end
of the first round and welcome newcomers to
their table).
During the conversation,
move among the tables.
Encourage everyone to
participate.
Remind people to note key
ideas, doodle and draw.
Let people know in a gentle way when it’s time
to move and begin a new round of
conversation.
Make sure key insights are recorded visually
or are gathered and posted if possible.
Be creative in adapting the six Café guidelines
to meet the unique needs of your situation.
I’m a Table Host, what do I do?
Remind people at your table to jot down key connections, ideas, discoveries, and
deeper questions as they emerge.
Remain at the table when others leave and welcome
travelers from other tables.
Briefly share key insights from the prior conversation so
others can link and build using ideas from their
respective tables.
Stay in Touch!
Like the Café process itself, this Guide is evolving. As you experiment with hosting your own Café conversations,
we’d love to hear from you, both about your Café experiences and the ways we can make this Guide more useful.
Contact info@theworldcafe.com with ideas and feedback. And for further detailed background information, including
Café stories, additional hosting tips, supporting articles, and links to related Café and dialogue initiatives, please visit
http://www.theworldcafe.com
© 2002 Whole Systems Associates. Please feel free to copy and distribute with acknowledgement of The World Café
Community as author.
What are Café Conversations?
Café Conversations are an easy-to-use method for creating a living network of collaborative
dialogue around questions that matter in service of the real work. Cafés in business have been
named in many ways to meet specific goals, including Creative Cafés, Knowledge Cafés, Strategy
Cafés, Leadership Cafés, Marketing Cafés, and Product Development Cafés. Most Café
conversations are based on the principles and format developed by The World Café (see
www.theworldcafe.com), a growing global movement to support conversations that matter in
corporate, government and community settings around the world.
Café Conversations are also a provocative metaphor
enabling us to see new ways to make a difference in our
lives and work. The power of conversation is so
invisible and natural that we usually overlook it.
For example, consider all the learning and
action choices that occur as people move
from one conversation to another both
inside the organization and outside, with
suppliers, customers and others in the
larger community. What if we considered
all of these conversations as one big
dynamic Café, with each of job function as
a table in a larger network of living
conversations, which is the core process for
sharing our collective knowledge and shaping our
future? Once we become aware of the power of
conversation as a key business process, we can use it more effectively for our mutual benefit.
What is essential about the Café method? We have outlined a series of guidelines for
putting conversation to work through dialogue and engagement. If you put these guidelines to
work when planning your meetings, you’ll be surprised at the improved quality of the outcomes you
get. When hosting a Café Conversation using all these guidelines simultaneously you’ll find you
are able to create a unique Café environment where surprising and useful outcomes are likely to
occur.
The Café is built
on the assumption that people already
have within them the wisdom and creativity
to confront even the most difficult challenges.
Given the appropriate context and focus,
it is possible to access and use this
deeper knowledge about
what’s important.