A personal favorite, World Cafe is a powerful way of unearthing experiences and ideas. Like most participatory models, World Cafe is grounded in the simple insight that conversation is how humans think together and that in almost any conversation, people will open up more in a small group than a large group. World Cafe is a means by which hosts can take advantage of the best aspects of small and large group conversation.
The "bible" of World Cafe was written by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs - The World Cafe: Shaping Our Future Through Conversations That Matter. In addition, there is mothership website that is chuck full of information, guides, and stories. Like Circle, World Cafe's logistics can be relatively easily mastered and like Circle, you can spend years deepening your effectiveness as a host.
World Cafe begins with questions.
The art of powerful questions is central to Cafe success. Powerful questions require us to think and converse deeply, cannot be answered with yes or no, invite us to move beyond the superficial, and at their best invite us to tell stories. If I were leading a Cafe conversation with Utah Democrats, I might begin with "What are the reasons you are a Democrat?" It sounds like a simple question but it has the potential to unleash passion if people take it seriously. A good Cafe host will spend almost as much time crafting the questions for the conversation as any other aspect of the planning process. The central prework of Cafe is twofold - identifying the needed outcomes and writing the questions. Unlike some other participatory methods (Circle in particular) Cafe has some minimum time requirements (anything less than 90 minutes is probably not enough except in special circumstances).
How does it work?
World Cafe gatherings begin by creating a welcoming space - the meeting room should be set up with tables (rounds work best) for to five people. On each table, you have you have large sheets of paper and markers. To create a cafe setting, each table can have a small vase and flowers, you have soft music playing and have drinks and small snacks (coffee, tea, cookies or pastries). As people arrive, you invite them to make a name tag, get a drink and find a seat at a table.
Once everyone arrives, the host (that's you!) welcomes people and provides the context and reasons for the gathering. He or she then introduces the 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 on the tablecloths
Have fun.
The host then explains the logistics: At each table, one person volunteers to be the host - the table host stays at the table through the rounds of conversation and shares what went on in previous rounds. Each round of conversation will take at a minimum 20 minutes and during that time people will answer the questions and using the paper (the tableclothes) will record ideas, draw, doodle, etc. These tablecloths become the real time record of what is said. At the end of each round, the table host stays at the table and everyone moves to different tables. The goal is to meet with many different people and hear different voices. If people are new to cafe, they may feel some anxiety at this point; this isn't your typical meeting and they're being asked to engage one another and themselves differently than in most public fora. The anxiety is normal and will vanish almost as soon as the first round begins.
Introduce the first question and let the group begin. The length of each round depends on the purpose of your gathering and how much time you have. Most people who have experienced Cafe conversation report that 20 or 30 minutes isn't nearly enough time. If you're purpose is to have people share experiences and hopes for your organization then you won't need as much time as if you're trying to identify and solve problems and conflicts. My experience with Cafe suggests that it works extremely in giving people space to share experiences and identify hopes, dreams and goals. As a means of brainstorming and generate a database of options for solving problems it works well. But for identifying and adopting solutions it seems less effective but (and this is important) given sufficient time, I believe Cafe could be used effectively to identify and refine solutions into workable shape.
At the end of the first round of conversation, the host announces time and invites people to move, reminding the table host to stay behind and provide a brief summary of what was said to the new group. The second round can focus on the same question as the first of it can tackle a second question. If you use a new question, it should grow from and build on the first. I.e. if the first round question was "What are the reasons you're a Democrat?" the second round question might be "Based on what you heard in round one, what are the core values Democrats share?"
A third round question might be "What is a good statement that communicates core Democratic values?" With this question, as host, you would want to distribute clean sheets of paper to each table for this round (the other pages are probably full anyway). On these new sheets, the tables will work out their possible statements and ideas.
Stories abound of World Cafe being used for thousands of people. I have a difficult time getting my head around the logistics for a group that size. However, working with a group of 45 or 50, I've seen Cafe unleash energy, creativity and passion so I can imagine it working for large groups. Obviously, a group of ten or twelve is probably too small for Cafe.
At the end of your rounds of discussion, you move to "harvest" - harvest is a means of sharing the insights, ideas and outcomes from the discussions. With the questions above, the tablecloths will be filled with notes, comments, ideas, pictures, stories and key words about why people are Democrats and what the core values are. A favorite harvest for me is a "gallery stroll" - the table cloths are posted on the walls or set somewhere highly visible and people are encouraged to walk through and see what's there. With the third question, I would post those sheets in a separate space, then depending on the size of the gathering, bring the group together for a quick final sharing - what jumped out, what resonated. Was there a statement of values that really struck you? Some Cafe hosts will post a large sheet of butcher block paper on the wall and as part of the harvest, invite people to use that paper to record ideas, key words and so on. It creates an immediately accessible graphic of what was said. The process allows people to connect ideas, to capture key concepts and so on. It also becomes the product and property of the whole group - it's not what that table said or that person said, it is what we as a group, said, saw and heard.
A day of Cafe with the Utah Democrats might spend the morning in 45 to 60 minute rounds on the questions above. For the afternoon, I might begin with a single round of discussion followed by a harvest - I would "What has been unsaid that needs said?" This question would serve to make explicit ideas and concerns that people needed to raise. We'd follow that with a short harvest. I wouldn't do more than one round on this question because such a question can easily distract conversation, moving people into an extremely negative mindset. The goal is to take advantage of the kibbitzing and pondering that happened during lunch which generated new ideas and insights that need shared without getting bogged down in them. With a group of Utah Democrats, the elephant in the room is Mormonism and the perception among many Mormons that you can't be a faithful Mormon and a Democrat. Giving people a chance to name that issue openly is a way of helping them manage it.
From there, you have two challenges - the after lunch sleepy and lagging energy. You want to keep people energized and focused so I'd do some quick multi-voting on the statements of value to narrow it down to the three or four top ones, then go back into Cafe conversation focusing on specific issues. I might for instance ask "What motivates you to give your time and money to a candidate?" or "What excites you about getting involved in a campaign?"
At the end of the day, you do a second harvest to pull together all the insights and ideas that have been shared.
World Cafe's power comes from the experience of being listened to and really heard. It comes from creating what practitioners call the "magic in the middle" - the way in which conversations and ideas emerge in several groups at once, then are cross-fertilized and shared. A few months back, at a Cafe conversation, someone started talking about finding ways to integrate new members into our organization. As people moved in the later rounds, that topic was shared and expanded on and deepened. During the harvest, we had an astonishingly rich variety of ways mentioned to integrate new members that, interestingly, required no change in organizational rules but rather that invited each person to act differently - simply changing perspectives is enough to change behavior.
Leaders need to commit as well to ongoing engagement with participatory leadership. Once people experience a day of World Cafe, they won't want to go back to the old model of sitting politely in rows and listening to presenters. It's not enough to use participatory processes for meetings - people need to see their participation made a difference. An ongoing commitment to participatory leadership creates changes in institutional life and behavior; a commitment to participatory leadership builds trust among staff, volunteers, and other stakeholders. Using these models has the added benefit of engaging people in creating policy, plans, etc., and people support what they create. World Cafe is a powerful tool for unleashing creativity, building community and engaging stakeholders in creating the future for an organization.