WORLD CAFE METHODOLOGY

The session on Wednesday afternoon 8 June, after the conference on “The Future of Hospitals and Healthcare” and the country presentations of the HOPE Exchange Participants 2016 on the findings during their 4-week stay abroad on “Innovation in hospitals and healthcare: the way forward”, will be devoted to a World Café.

What is the World Café format?

Drawing on five to seven design principles, the World Café methodology is a simple, effective, and flexible format for hosting group dialogue. It aims at harnessing collective wisdom and NOT at reaching a resolution that involves trade offs. While the World Café format is reportedly addictive it is though, as it requires participants coming with an open mind and heart!

The following five components comprise the basic model that you will find in the Agora World Café.

Setting

The discussions will be held at round tables of 12 participants maximum.

Welcome and introduction

The café host will welcome participants and introduce the World Café process, setting the context.

Group rounds

The process begins with the first of three 20 to 30 minute rounds of conversation for the group seated around a table. Each table will have a “table host”. At the end of the round, each member of the group moves to a different new table. Staying behind on each table will be the “table host” for the next round, who welcomes the next group and briefly fills them in on what happened in the previous round.

Questions

Each round is prefaced with a question designed for the specific context and desired purpose of the session. The same questions can be used for more than one round, or they can be built upon each other to focus the conversation or guide its direction.

Harvest

After the groups (and/or in between rounds, as desired) individuals are invited to share insights of other results from their conversations with the rest of the large group.