Worl Cafe - was: Conversations that Matter at Girl Scout Convention

Lisa Heft lisaheft at openingspace.net
Mon Nov 3 17:28:19 PST 2008


Hi, lovely Michael.

 

I took the liberty of changing the title for my response as you are so
specifically inquiring about The World Café. 

 

One quick answer: shorter time availability. When looking at a time less
than 3 hours I often switch to another process where participants frame
their own experience and can notice common threads and different points of
view to inform a systems-wide look at things. Like Open Space, the World
Café scales up (one facilitator can work with any sized group) and works
across culture and language (the facilitator does not have to know the
language or content of the group’s conversation, although any good
facilitator does good rich pre-work with the client to understand context,
issues and culture). In the World Café, the art of framing the questions
(which, like in OS, is done with facilitator and client team working
together) is indeed useful, and important.

Sorry - I’ve got my nose down in a deadline today so I will let others
respond to what World Café is and can do. It’s quite a wonderful tool
but I
don’t see it as a controlled process, just one in which questions are asked
and there is a form recommended to help folks mix and match from group to
group to experience the data / differences / common threads in the room


 

Cheers from a rainy Berkeley,

Lisa

 

Join me for the Open Space Learning Workshop this December 17-19 in San
Francisco -- for information and registration:
<mailto:lisaheft at openingspace.net> lisaheft at openingspace.net 

___________________________

L i s a   H e f t

Consultant, Facilitator, Educator

O p e n i n g  S p a c e

 <mailto:lisaheft at openingspace.net> lisaheft at openingspace.net

 <http://www.openingspace.net/> www.openingspace.net 

 

From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Michael
Wood
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 5:09 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Conversations that Matter at Girl Scout Convention

 

I have not used World Cafe but I often see it pop up in the same emails as
conversations about Open Space. 

 

>From the WC web site, my limited understanding is that:

 

1. WC is a more controlled process than OS in that it is the Sponsor who
frames the questions about what they want from the group

2. The Facilitator of WC plays a more directive role in what happens and
when

3. WC moves towards converging themes to a kind of "collective mind" of the
group. 

4. There is not necessarily any expectations that participants will exercise
responsibility for outcomes after the event.

 

So it seems that WC is a kind of sophisticated brainstorming process to
bring out creative thinking on a particular topic or theme?

 

Does anyone have any examples of where they have chosen to use WC instead of
OS (or visa versa) and why you made that choice?

 

Michael Wood

 

 


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