© 2015 The World Café Community Foundation
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What are World Café Conversations?
is an easy-to-use method for creating a living network of collaborative dialogue around
questions that matter in service to real work. Cafés in dierent contexts have been named
in many ways to meet specic goals, for example Creative Cafés, Strategy Cafés, Leadership
Cafés, and Community Cafés. World Café conversations are based on the principles and
format developed by the World Café, a global movement to support conversations that
matter in corporate, government, and community settings around the world.
World Café
a provocative metaphor enabling us to see new ways to
make a dierence 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 inside our organizations
and communities. What if we considered all of these
conversations as one big dynamic Café, each 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 process in all aspects of
our lives, we can use it more eectively for our mutual
benet.
World Café is also
We have outlined a series of guidelines for putting conversation to work through dialogue
and engagement. If you use these guidelines in planning your meetings and gatherings,
you’ll nd you are able to create a unique environment where surprising and useful
outcomes are likely to occur. A World Cafe is always intimate, even when it scales to very
large numbers.
What’s essential about the World Café method?
The World Café is built on
the assumption that ...
People already have within
them the wisdom and
creativity to confront even
the most difcult challenges;
that the answers we need
are available to us; and that
we are Wiser Together than
we are alone.
illustration by Nancy Margulies
© 2015 The World Café Community Foundation
Creative Commons Attribution
Free to copy & distribute w/acknowledgement & link: www.theworldcafe.com
World Café Guidelines:
Conducting an exciting World Café Conversation is not hard—it’s limited only by your
imagination! The World Café format is exible and adapts to many dierent circumstances.
When these design principles are used together they foster collaborative dialogue, active
engagement, and constructive possibilities for action.
1) Set the Context
Pay attention to the reason you are bringing people together, and
what you want to achieve. Knowing the purpose and parameters
of your meeting enables you to consider and choose the most
important elements to realize your goals: e.g. who should be
part of the conversation, what themes or questions will be most
pertinent, what sorts of harvest will be more useful, etc..
Seven Design Principles
2) Create 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.
3) Explore Questions that Matter
Knowledge emerges in response to compelling questions. Find
questions that are relevant to the real-life concerns of the group.
Powerful questions that “travel well” help attract collective energy,
insight, and action as they move throughout a system. Depending
on the timeframe available and your objectives, your Café may
explore a single question or use a progressively deeper line of
inquiry through several conversational rounds.
4) 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 dierence. 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.
© 2015 The World Café Community Foundation
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Free to copy & distribute w/acknowledgement & link: www.theworldcafe.com
World Café Guidelines:
5) 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.
Seven Design Principles, cont.
6) Listen Together for Patterns & Insights
Listening is a gift we give to one another. The quality of our
listening is perhaps the most important factor determining the
success of a Café. Through practicing shared listening and paying
attention to themes, patterns and insights, we begin to sense a
connection to the larger whole. Encourage people to listen for
what is not being spoken along with what is being shared.
7) Share Collective Discoveries
Conversations held at one table reect a pattern of wholeness
that connects with the conversations at the other tables. The last
phase of the Café, often called the “harvest”, involves making
this pattern of wholeness visible to everyone in a large group
conversation. Invite a few minutes of silent reection on the
patterns, themes and deeper questions experienced in the small
group conversations and call them out to share with the larger
group. Make sure you have a way to capture the harvest - working
with a graphic recorder is very helpful.
For a more in-depth look at the World Café design principles, see the World
Café book, “The World Café: Shaping Our Futures through Conversations that
Matter”, or attend the Hosting World Café: The Fundamentals Signature
Learning Program at Fielding Graduate University.
World Cafe Design Principles
Stamp Illustrations by
Nancy Margulies
© 2015 The World Café Community Foundation
Creative Commons Attribution
Free to copy & distribute w/acknowledgement & link: www.theworldcafe.com
World Café Conversations
• Seat four (ve max) people at small Café-style tables or in conversation clusters.
• Set up progressive (at least three) rounds of conversation, approximately 20 minutes
each.
• Engage questions or issues that genuinely matter to your life, work, or community.
• Encourage participants to write, doodle and draw key ideas on their tablecloths (and/
or note key ideas on large index cards or placemats in the center of the table).
• Upon completing the initial round of conversation, you may ask one person to remain
at the table as a “table host” for the next round, while the others serve as travelers or
“ambassadors of meaning.” The travelers carry key ideas, themes and questions into
their new conversations, while the table host welcomes the new set of travelers.
• 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
or third round, all of the tables or conversation clusters in the room will be cross-
pollinated with insights from prior conversations.
• In the last round of conversation, people can return to their rst table to synthesize
their discoveries, or they may continue traveling to new tables.
• You may use the same question for one or more rounds of conversation, or you may
pose dierent questions in each round to build on and help deepen the exploration.
• After at least three rounds of conversation, initiate a period of sharing discoveries &
insights in a whole group conversation. It is in these town meeting-style conversations
that patterns can be identied, 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.
At a Glance
© 2015 The World Café Community Foundation
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Café Etiquette
Play! Experiment! Improvise!
illustration by Avril Orloff
© 2015 The World Café Community Foundation
Creative Commons Attribution
Free to copy & distribute w/acknowledgement & link: www.theworldcafe.com
The Importance of World Café Question(s)
The questions(s) you use for a World 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.
Keep in mind that...
• Well-crafted questions attract energy and focus
our attention to what really counts. Experienced
World 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 o 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
Five Ways to Make Collective Knowledge Visible
Use a Graphic Recorder
Take a Gallery Tour
Post Your Insights
Create Idea Clusters
Make a Story
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 & graphics to illustrate the patterns of the
conversation.
At times, people will place the paper tablecloths from their tables on the wall so members can take a
tour of the group’s ideas during a break.
Participants can place large Post-Its with a single key insight on each on a blackboard, wall, etc. so
that everone can review the ideas during a break.
Group Post-Its into “affinity clusters” so that related ideas are visible and available for planning the
group’s next steps.
Some World Café hosts create a newspaper or storybook to bring the results of their work to larger
audiences after the event, using graphic recordings along with text as documentation.
illustration by Nancy Margulies
© 2015 The World Café Community Foundation
Creative Commons Attribution
Free to copy & distribute w/acknowledgement & link: www.theworldcafe.com
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 ve people. Less
than four at a table may not provide enough
diversity of perspectives, more than ve 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
owers 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 lled
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 ip 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!
© 2015 The World Café Community Foundation
Creative Commons Attribution
Free to copy & distribute w/acknowledgement & link: www.theworldcafe.com
I’m the Café Host; what do I do?
The job of the Café Host is to see that the seven
design principles - the guidelines for dialogue and
engagement - are put into action.
It is not the specic form, but living the spirit of the
guidelines that counts.
Hosting a Café requires thoughtfulness, artistry and
care. The Café Host can make the dierence between
an interesting conversation & one that truly matters.
• 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, ip 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
volunteers to remain at the end of a
round of conversation and welcome
new people for the next round).
• 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
seven Café Design Principles, or
guidelines, to meet the unique
needs of your situation.
illustration by Nancy Margulies
© 2015 The World Café Community Foundation
Creative Commons Attribution
Free to copy & distribute w/acknowledgement & link: www.theworldcafe.com
I’m a Table Host; what do I do?
• Remain at the table when others leave and
welcome travelers from other tables for the next
round of conversation.
• Briey share key insights from the prior
conversation so others can link and build using
ideas from their respective tables.
• Gently & as appropriate, encourage people at
your table to jot down key connections, ideas,
discoveries, and deeper questions as they emerge.
• Because people are used to behaving a certain way when they are a
facilitator or “being facilitated”, there can be a danger with
inexperienced Table Hosts taking on more of a role than is meant here.
• There are no facilitators in a World Café, only hosts. Everyone at the
tables is responsible for hosting themselves and each other. For this
and a variety of other reasons you may choose not to use Table Hosts in
your World Café.
• Always choose a new Table Host at the end of each round - not at the
beginning (the same person should not be a Table Host for more than
one round).
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 [email protected] 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 our website: http://www.theworldcafe.com
Stay in Touch!
Note -
illustration by Nancy Margulies
