Knowledge Cafe

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A knowledge café (also called a Gurteen Knowledge Café) is a type of business meeting or organisational workshop in which a group of people have an open, creative conversation on a topic of mutual interest to surface their collective knowledge, share ideas and insights, and gain a deeper understanding of the subject and the issues involved.

1 Origins
2 Structure
3 Number of participants
4 Time required
5 Rules of engagement
6 Related methods
7 External links

[edit] Origins

The knowledge café method was originated by David Gurteen, a UK-based consultant specialising in knowledge management.

[edit] Structure

The knowledge café begins with the participants seated in a circle of chairs (or concentric circles of chairs if the group is large or the room is small).

It is led by a facilitator, who begins by explaining the purpose of knowledge cafés and the role of conversation in business life. The facilitator then introduces the café topic and poses one or two key open-ended questions. For example, if the topic is knowledge sharing, the question for the group might be: "What are the barriers to knowledge sharing in an organisation, and how do you overcome them?"

When the introduction session is complete, the group breaks into small groups, with about five people in each group. Each small group discusses the questions for about 45 minutes. The small group discussions are not led by a facilitator, and no summary of the discussion is captured for subsequent feedback to the large group.

Participants then return to the circle and the facilitator leads the group through the final 45 minute session, in which people reflect on the small group discussions and share any thoughts, insights and ideas on the topic that may have emerged.

[edit] Number of participants

A knowledge café is most effective with between 15 and 50 participants. Thirty is an ideal number of people. If there are more than 50 participants it is usually necessary to employ microphones for the large group conversation, and this tends to inhibit the flow of the conversation.

[edit] Time required

One to two hours is required for a worthwhile knowledge café.

[edit] Rules of engagement

The only hard and fast rule is that the meeting is conducted in such a way that most of the time is spent in conversation. Presentations and feedback sessions have no place in knowledge cafés.

[edit] Related methods

The knowledge café shares certain features with The World Cafe, a conversational process that originated during a strategic dialogue with the Intellectual Capital Pioneers at the home of Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, and subsequently developed by the global World Café community of practice.