My first experience with World Café!

Last week, Christiaan Verwijs and I facilitated our first World Café for our Reflexive AI initiative. It was also my first time ever facilitating a World Café!

During my summer clean-up, I threw away quite a few books that had been collecting dust. Apparently, a Dutch book describing World Café in detail was one of them. At the time, I assumed: “It’s probably similar to Conversation Café.” Crap, not my smartest move; I would have loved to learn more about it. 😅

Anyhow, the World Café was part of a larger workshop. The overall theme was:
👉 How can organizations use AI in a human-centered manner?

We started with Impromptu Networking to explore what human-centered AI means to participants. This was followed by the World Café itself, with five different topics explored in small groups. We closed with 15% Solutions, inviting everyone to identify an action they could take themselves.

During the World Café:
✅ Participants spread across five stations, each with a different topic and a host who stayed at the station.
✅ After 15 minutes, participants moved to a new station and built on the previous group's insights.
✅ After three rounds, everyone walked past all five stations in silence and voted for the insights they considered most important.

It worked really well. I was a little concerned about the long 15-minute timebox. Would everyone get a chance to contribute without any intermediate steps, like a 1-2-4? But everyone seemed engaged, and the outcome was incredibly helpful.

Afterward, I reflected on how World Café compares to Liberating Structures. My take is that it feels like a mixture of Conversation Café and Shift & Share.

Conversation Café:

• Same: Small-group conversations around a shared question, with an emphasis on listening and building on each other’s perspectives.
• Different: In Conversation Café, the group stays together, and the host guides the conversation. In World Café, participants move between tables, while the host stays behind, welcomes each new group, and helps them build on what previous groups discovered.

Shift & Share:

• Same: Participants move between different stations, while the host stays behind and welcomes each new group.
• Different: In Shift & Share, the host primarily shares or demonstrates something, and participants respond to it. In World Café, the host facilitates a conversation around a question, while each new group builds on the insights from previous groups.

I’m probably oversimplifying things, and this comparison certainly doesn’t capture everything about World Café. But hey, this was only my first experience! 😇

I’ve already scheduled more sessions, so I’ll keep experimenting and sharing what I learn. I’ll also organize a public meetup around World Café, so we can turn it into a shared learning experience.

What’s your experience with World Café? What have you learned from using it?
Any tips or findings you’d like to share?