World cafe method

Numbers of people: large group activity.

Pros and cons:

Useful for: encouraging people to come up with ideas and solutions through linked discussions of topics and challenges in small groups.

Disadvantages and risks: you need experienced facilitators and hosts to make this go well. 

Costs: you may incur venue hire, catering costs and expenses for a large group of participants. There is a free hosting tool kit and an online community of practice.  

Timing:  allow a couple of hours to include welcome and introductions, 3 rounds of discussion in small groups, plus plenary discussion in between, or at the end of the small group rounds of discussion. Provide time for breaks too.

Preparation:

• decide on at least one powerful, open, question to generate discussion
• decide who will sit where in each round in advance, getting a good mix of people at each table, and enabling participants to meet lots of people through the discussions in each round. 
• create a warm and bright café-like, welcoming, environment with small round tables covered with tablecloths, decorated a little, perhaps with flowers. Have at most 5 people sitting at each table. Put pens and paper on them ready for people to use.  Have fun with this - you might consider paper tablecloths so people can doodle or write on them if they want.

How to deliver the activity on the day:

• This short video provides an introductory overview.

• give a friendly welcome and introduction (yourself, the process, and the purpose of the event). Share the 'café etiquette'. 
• hold three, or more, rounds of conversation at each table, usually up to about 20 minutes each. At the end of each round, every member of the group moves to a different table - except the 'table host' who remains to welcome new people to their table and brief them on what was talked about in the previous round of conversation. The groups may discuss the same question in each round, or the questions can guide the overall direction of conversation.
• invite people to share insights or results of the conversation with the whole group, after each round, or at the end of the rounds. Record the result visually at the front of the room.

After the session:

Analyse all responses, including any doodles and notes written on the tablecloths. Follow good practice in working with qualitative data, such as looking for any themes and great ideas for solutions and service improvements emerging from the responses.

Link to find out more: The World Cafe