How does the world café work?
Conversation, movement, more conversation.
Ideas are shared, challenged, expanded and captured on paper tablecloths. Problems are identified and possible solutions begin to emerge right there in the room.
THE RULE
A problem comes with a challenge
We have a rule in our Legal Education World Cafés: you can raise any problem you like, but if you raise it, we have to try to solve it.
Students like this. It gives them the freedom to throw anything that is on their mind into the mix, while making the conversation feel constructive and hopeful. They positively embrace the “let’s solve impossible problems” atmosphere.
That rule is one of the adaptations I have made to the World Café. And that’s okay. I think.
THE UNMETHOD
Room to improvise
In fact, Javier Monforte, Jake Netherway and Brett Smith have described the World Café as an
“unmethod”. They argue that its strength lies in not treating it as a rigid research method that must always be followed in exactly the same way.
Like jazz, it has a recognisable structure but there is also space to listen, respond and improvise.
So that is what I have done. I have taken the basic approach and adapted it to suit the work I do with students.
THE SHAPE
Seven principles
Set the context
Clarify the overall purpose, goals, and parameters of the meeting so participants understand why they are gathered.
Create hospitable space
Design a welcoming, safe and comfortable physical and psychological environment (like a small café) where people feel free to be themselves.
Explore questions that matter
Focus the group's energy on powerful, open-ended questions that spark genuine curiosity and deep inquiry.
Encourage everyone's contribution
Invite active participation and mutual respect from every person, ensuring quieter voices are heard alongside dominant ones.
Connect diverse perspectives
Move participants between tables across multiple rounds to cross-pollinate ideas and link distinct viewpoints.
Listen together for patterns and insights
Pay collective attention to emerging themes, deeper questions, and recurring connections rather than just individual opinions.
Share collective discoveries
Harvest and make visible the insights of the whole group so that collective knowledge is accessible to everyone.
IN PRACTICE
It should feel different
Students arrive in a warm and welcoming space. There is gentle music playing and coffee brewing. The tables are covered with checked tablecloths, vases of flowers and pots of coloured pens. It is, as far as possible, a café created inside a university teaching room.
The atmosphere matters. I have tried the technique without the coffee and tablecloths, and it does not work nearly as well. Those details tell students that this is going to be different. They are not arriving for another class, meeting or focus group. They are being invited into a conversation.
I begin by explaining why we are there and what we hope to achieve. Then I give each table its first question and set the conversations going. Very quickly, the room fills with chatter as students talk, question one another and scribble their ideas across the paper tablecloths.
At that point, my job is mostly to step back. I keep an ear on the energy in the room so that I can sense when the conversations are beginning to lull and it is time to move.
IN THE ROOM
How the conversation moves
Start around the table
Students begin at their first table with a question to explore together. They talk, challenge, scribble, draw connections and leave a visible record of the conversation behind them.
The groups rearrange
After the first round, the conversation pauses and most people move to a different table. One person stays behind as the table host, ready to welcome the next group and share what has already emerged.
New voices join the conversation
New groups form around each table. The host gives a brief sense of the conversation so far, while the newcomers bring ideas and perspectives from elsewhere in the room. Connections start to appear between discussions that began separately.
The conversation grows
As the rounds continue, ideas move with the people carrying them. They are repeated, questioned, combined and developed until patterns begin to emerge across the room rather than at any single table.
HARVESTING THE CONVERSATION
What matters now?
Eventually, everyone comes back together and we prepare for the whole-group discussion. Each table reviews everything on its tablecloth and agrees its priorities. We usually organise these under three headings:
What works well
Easy wins
Bigger challenges
We share the first two fairly quickly. Then we turn to the bigger challenges. Each table introduces one, and the whole room begins to explore what we might do about it.
THE QUESTIONS
Imagine first, constrain later
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Taking ideas somewhere
We finish by agreeing a list of action points. I never promise students that I can deliver every change they suggest. I do promise to take their ideas to the people who may be able to act – and, importantly, to report back.
Change is not the only thing students value about the process. Being given the space to speak honestly and knowing that someone has listened can matter too.
Student voice
Even if nothing changes
at least I’ve been able to talk about how I feel about it.
BEING HEARD
It matters in its own right
I still want things to change. But that comment reminds me that being heard is not merely a step on the way to something else. Sometimes, it matters in its own right.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING