🏭World Café Method

Debate, switch, share and repeat. A method to facilitate inclusive debates by Tallinn.

What is this tool about and why is it relevant ?

World Café Community Meeting is a tool that was greatly inspired by the original World Café method that is used for hosting large group dialogue. In the Fab City Hub context the original tool was modified to support community relationships and decision-making. In a community that prioritises reaching a consensus in an important matter, all voices must be heard. Spending 3 hours in a meeting is not fun for anyone. World Café Community Meeting helps to discuss potential solutions and make decisions in a large group efficiently.

One of the sessionof Word Café Method Workshop in Tallinn. ( Credits Tallinn Pilot)

The main difference between our World Cafe community meeting iand the original tool is that we changed the topic for discussion more often and shared the results of the discussion also more often. But if the group gets larger than 30 people, more rounds for the same discussion topics are necessary.

Local Outcomes 👍

The organisation of multiple debates organised through the World Cafe Methods session allowed the local team in Tallinn to obtain the following achievements:

→ supported the creation of a community that aimed to be inclusive and reach consensus in important matters

→ strengthen collaboration and alignment of needs and vision both for the community and the municipality

→ improved the capacity of self-organisation and decision-making, overcoming differences in languages, backgrounds and beliefs.

Key Steps

Find here a list of fundamental steps shared by the Tallinn team you should follow if you want to organise a World Café method in your Fab City Hub.

The overall suggestion is to start the discussions on a more easy and fun note and follow with more difficult or serious ones. Let the people warm up and get to know each other better with the first rounds to then make decisions afterwards. The topics for the discussion rounds can have all kinds of purposes for example to get to know each other, to share knowledge, to figure out strategies or to make decisions. This tool should be used creatively.

Identify the right location

Identify the location where the activity will take place

Send invitation

start sending invitation to communtiy Members to check on avialability. This event has to have a large participation from your community.

Define topics for discussion and the purpose of the session

Define the topics for discussion and the purpose for the session. Keep in mind that any question raised for the group discussion should be formatted in an open manner. For example: “How should we communicate and keep in touch with each other in the community?” and not “Should we use Facebook for communication?”.

Prepare the space

Prepare the space to facilitate group discussions and materials ( paper and pencils) for the participants' note-taking

Welcome participants

Welcome the people to the space and divide them into groups with ideally no more than 4 people.

Start the first round

follow the guidelines :

• introduce the topic

• Give people 20 minutes for discussion: each person will share their thoughts

• Ask people to change the table/group with others. Only one person from each table will stay and he/she will represent the collective understanding of the last round of discussion

• Repeat the steps 7-10 up to four rounds by either changing the topic for discussion or keeping it the same

NOTE : If using one or more rounds of discussion for decision-making then after the round of discussion and after sharing the results/main thoughts raised during the discussion with the large group, a simple voting should take place with using raised hands. For example if the discussion was about the communication with the community and the results revealed the proposed solutions for it made by each group, the facilitator will point out the most popular solution. Then the facilitator will ask the participants to show their support for the solution by raising or not raising their hand. If everyone agrees with the consensus, then this topic has been successfully finished.

If people do not agree, another round of the same topic/discussion should follow with a new group, where even better solutions might appear.

Summarise

Make, the facilitator, a short summary of the most important points discussed and decisions made. Thank the participants for active participation.

Follow up

Follow up and share the results of the event online with the participants and any other community member that could not participate at the session.

Implement

Implement the decisions taken during the session

Summary Table

Characteristics
Difficulty	Easy
Duration	The duration depends how many topics will be discussed. Each topic will demand about 15 minutes of time. 10 min discussion 5 minutes for the round of results and voting if necessary.
Facilitator I Participants	F: 1 I P: 12-30 The session can take place in multiple languages, but for that additional translators are needed. We have had three languages spoken during the session and that is why we had 3 facilitators.
Setting	Offline
Contact	Tallinn University of Technology, Karin Kruup, [e-mail]
Tagging System	#GetYourGovernanceRight, #Build&GrowYourCommunity, #Socialinclusion, #InnovationSpace,

Do you want to learn more?

Here some useful links that you can look at if you want to dig into this method :

→ have a look to this interesting video to better understand the method

→ Check the dedicated page about Tallinn in the CENTRINNO web page to have an overview about their work and actions towards the setting up of their FCH

Tallinn – CENTRINNOCENTRINNO