World Cafe Canvas - A creative method for up to 200 people

Introduction

In this article I'll show you a creative method for meetings, conferences or summits with 10-200 people. It's a variation of the famous World Cafe. 

I like the World Cafe very much. In my opinion the biggest pros are:

• You can do it with a lot of people - scaling
• Everybody can participate in an active way - open
• You can work on a lot of topics the same time - efficient
• Everybody can talk about the things he wants to - open mindet

Of course there are also some cons:

• You need a lot of space
• The creative thoughts are sometimes a little confused
• It's difficult to have a quick look at the outcomes

My proposal is to use my World Cafe Canvas.

General Rules

The general rules are the same as in the World Cafe method (if you don't know the World Cafe, you can find a lot of information in the internet), but instead of writing on the tables you use a structured Flipchart, which can be mounted on the wall or a flipchart stand or a metaplan board.

How to use the canvas

First you enter the topic and the host in the upper line. The host should stay at the location during further iterations.

During the discussion everybody can enter thoughts in the corresponding fields, moderated by the host (means timeboxing, giving word to sb., checking and managing equipment and process etc.)

If you want to have a structured thought process, you can follow the numbers and

1. Start with goals
2. follow up with ideas to reach the goals
3. identify obstacles
4. and finally try to find next steps to overcome the obstacles and reach the goals

Beside that you can enter open questions in the lower line.

Outcomes

Afterwards all the charts could be collected and mounted next to each other on a wall. Then everybody should have some time to have a look at the outcomes. 

I hope you like this method and you can use it soon. If you have ideas for improvement or gain experience please tell me. :-)

best regards 

Dennis