Knowledge Cafe

A Knowledge - Café is a relatively simple knowledge management tool for group activities such as symposia, conferences or meetings. Especially in the English-speaking world (Australia, England, USA), but also in Switzerland, this form of learning communities is carried out on the edge of public conferences, workshops and in-house training on specific technical topics by specializing in this tool providers. Best known are the conversation cafes, the Gurteen Knowledge Cafés and the World Café.

Knowledge cafes as a tool of personalized knowledge management offer the possibility of open, creative conversation with the aim of a better common understanding and approaches to solutions on a specific question or problem to develop. Afterwards, the participants can document the results, for example in the form of a digital mind map. Thus Knowledge cafes also offer approaches to strategy methods of codified knowledge management. The use of Knowledge cafes loosens stiff meeting atmospheres and does not offer the option, but the duty of the informal exchange. Forums in Knowledge cafes can provide new inputs into business without having to immediately imply concrete solutions. They can also be a forum for the exchange of views within the workforce and thus provide additional impetus for decision-making and solution processes in the company. An external organization and moderation is advantageous in the design of Knowledge - cafes; with a little practice and creativity, the cafés can also easily be integrated into the other event organization.

Suitability

The implementation of Knowledge cafes ideal for groups with a group size of at least twelve people. This team can consist of a corporate college in the context of an internal meeting or training as well as from a heterogeneous expert audience, eg at conferences, there are.

Basically it is the Knowledge Café than generating solutions to a specific question, but a creative and open approach to a particular subject ( unsolved ) problem or issue. Goal is the consolidation and extension of existing ideas. The input can also open up entirely new perspectives. In addition, Knowledge cafes want to promote informal exchange of tacit knowledge between the participants and the participants.

Knowledge cafes are in principle for

• The development of inputs to a particular topic.
• Knowledge Sharing.
• The stimulation of innovative thinking in the group.
• The investigation and discussion of options for action in practice-related issues.
• The group-related contact knotting between people who meet for the first time (eg symposia ) or a long time to work (eg internal corporate meetings or training sessions ), in an authentic, casual coffee house exchange.
• Employment with strategically relevant challenges or opportunities.
• The deepening of relationships and mutual gain of knowledge in an existing group ( such as in a college ).
• Promoting mutual interaction between speaker / in and audience.
• The integration of larger groups (> 12 people) in an authentic, processual dialogue.

Not suitable they are for

• The confrontation with an already decided givenness or solution.
• The unilateral transfer of information (eg, the speaker / by the spokesperson for the audience, but not vice versa).
• The preparation of a detailed implementation plan to a specific question.
• Groups with a group size < 12 people.

Operation

Knowledge cafes share a plenary group into smaller groups of five to six people who gather each at a round café table to discuss a specific open question or a specific topic. A coffee house owners will moderate the discussion. Each café will take about one to two hours. The number of participants should be more than twelve, ideally 30 people. Before the opening of each coffee houses, the moderators / facilitators should give a brief introduction to Knowledge - cafes and its purpose.

After a predetermined period of about 45 minutes to change the cafe table visitors the table and moved to the next Knowledge Cafe - so long until each group visited once every café. The coffee house owners remain at the table and give the incoming group a brief summary of their discussion topic and the results of the opening act ( about ten minutes). Similarly, the newly arrived group reports a brief report on the course of discussion in their previous café. On the basis of both summaries they then open a new discussion, should not interrupt the Caféhaus-Besitzer/die-Besitzerin as possible, because in the Knowledge Café is about the thoughts and ideas of the entire group - that is to say collective brainstorming. Among the ideas developed, the participants / inside and / moderator / in keywords can note, for example, on a papery café tablecloth.

The treated contexts of Knowledge cafes have to clarify in advance the organizers - that is, they must have a clear idea for what and why develop the café: "If you do not know where you are going any road will get you there. " Helpful questions that you can ask in the organization phase of the Knowledge cafes are, for example:

• Who is the Knowledge Café participate?
• What topic or which specific topic to be studied?
• Is the cafe question meaningful discussion and efficient?
• Which of the participants in the Knowledge Café represented tend to be more conventional and well-known views - which are carriers of new, unconventional knowledge?
• Which time frame is for the Knowledge - café?
• What question or set of questions which will be put up for discussion?
• Which survey dimension (s ) to be pursued?
• What issues are most likely useful and important, and apply a creative exchange?
• Which would be a good result that could be achieved with the Knowledge Café? As can best be led to this result?

By the discussion of consistent themes each cafe table is repeated, the participants are given knowledge gains from a wide range of knowledge resources. This increase of knowledge takes place in the Knowledge Café efficient than individual exchange among individuals and can also documented (eg in a mind map ) and thus be made available to other groups of people.

Tool for knowledge sharing and problem exploration

The Knowledge Café survived by his special, warm atmosphere. This should create the initiators aware - away from the cold, sterile and impersonal conference room. These include round tables, comfortable seating, offering hot and cold drinks and snacks or cake. It can run in the background and soft music.

The invitation should include the theme or central question, which discusses the participants shaft in the café. It must be clear that it is not about solving problems, but about a problem sensing. The invitation should therefore kindly in the coffee-house style - are designed - and not in the e- mail monotony. It is also important to encourage each individual to the active call participation in the coffee house round. Each participant represents a specific angle within the café society and should be included. This is one of the tasks of the coffee house owner. This case, the organizers also "speaking objects", such as colorful markers, pass around. This gives everyone the opportunity to write his thoughts on the papery tablecloth. The mixing of the coffee-house guests, that is their heterogeneous composition, is just as critical success. The distribution of the guests in the various cafes should therefore be specified in advance.

In the last coffee house round, all participants see the paper ceiling transcripts of the cafes on together and ask questions such as:

• What can be regarded as the result of our exchange we here?
• If only one voice in the room - what would it say this?
• What further questions have arisen as a result of our exchange?
• Can we identify patterns? What these patterns run out? What they give us information?

These transcripts can be discussed in the whole group now again. The distillate from this, eg in the form of a mind map or any other specific cluster, then stands as treated, stored knowledge is available and hence refers to new activities in the field of codified knowledge management.