World Café Methodology Explained

The Geraldo Rivera Fund Leadership Cohort is a group of self-advocates and those invested in the field of developmental disabilities who came together to discuss ways of making positive change that involve disability awareness, changing the culture and attitude towards people with disabilities, open a wider scope of employment opportunities for people with IDD, and ultimately influence policy.

We hope to achieve these goals through large events such as this one by using the Art of Hosting and having conversations with the community through the use of World Cafés. If you don't know what that is, don't worry, we'll explain!

What is a World Café: World Café 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 different contexts have been named in many ways to meet specific 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.

Why is World Café a Useful Tool for Conversations:

The World Café is built on the assumption that people already have within them the wisdom and creativity to confront even the most difficult challenges; that the answers we need are available to us; and that we are Wiser Together than we are alone. 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 effectively for our mutual benefit.

World Café Guidelines Involve Seven Design Principles: 1) Set the Context 2) Create Hospitable Space 3) Explore Questions that Matter 4) Encourage Everyone’s Contribution 5) Connect Diverse Perspectives 6) Listen Together for Patterns & Insights 7) Share Collective Discoveries

What We Do at a World Café:

• Seat four (five 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 first 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 different 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 identified, collective knowledge grows, and possibilities for action emerge.

Source: 2015 The World Café Community Foundation Creative Commons Attribution Free to copy & distribute w/acknowledgement & link: www.theworldcafe.com