Conversation Café

A conversation structure for a small, fixed circle of four to eight people, around one theme that has no quick answer. There is a talking stone: whoever holds it speaks, the rest listen. The conversation runs in four rounds. In the first each person says once what comes to mind, in the second each person responds once to what they heard, in the third the circle talks freely with the stone in the middle, and in the closing round each person says what they take away. Six agreements are read out beforehand. The goal is understanding, not a decision.

With the default settings the whole structure takes ± 35 minutes, briefing and look-back included.

With the default settings about thirty-five minutes: three rounds of six minutes and a free dialogue of twelve, half an hour in all. On top of that come two minutes for the agreements, a minute for settling into the circle and two minutes for the reflection afterwards. A second round of three minutes makes it half an hour; a free dialogue of twenty minutes, on a heavy theme, three quarters of an hour. You set each round yourself, in steps of thirty seconds. A round at zero is skipped. When time is tight, shorten the second round first and the free dialogue last. By default the player only moves to the next round when you click. Leave it that way: on a sensitive theme you do not want to cut anyone off mid-sentence.

Four to eight, with six as the default. Below four there is no circle: too few voices for a round to mean anything. Above eight, one turn per person soon fills the whole hour, and everyone waits too long for the stone. The circle stays together for the whole conversation; nobody changes seats.

With several circles at once. A class of twenty-eight, for example, sits in four circles of seven, each at its own table with its own talking stone. The screen gives every circle the same round and the same theme at the same time. You walk round, keep the time and click on when the circles are ready, but you do not join any of them. Do not make the circles bigger than eight to have fewer of them: a circle of ten runs longer than the lesson.

Any object you can hold in your hand: a stone, a pen, a soft toy, a bunch of keys. The rule is simple: whoever holds it speaks, and the rest listen. So it is always visible who has the floor, nobody can interrupt anyone, and the speaking time is shared out before the quickest can take it. In the first round, the second round and the closing round the stone goes round in order; in the free dialogue it lies in the middle and you pick it up when you want to say something. That difference (in order, or free but visible) is what sets a café apart from a discussion.

Six, once, before the first round: open (be open to other ideas); accept (let others be who they are); curious (ask further, do not judge); discover (look for new insight together); sincere (share what genuinely matters to you); brief (keep it short, leave room for others). They hold for the whole conversation. They are on the class screen while you read them out, and in the free dialogue their names appear again; to keep them visible for the whole lesson, print them as a poster for the board. Read them calmly and add nothing: they are agreements the circle keeps together, not rules to call someone out on.

A good theme is one open question with no quick or right answer, that touches on how people treat each other, and that is not so personal that anyone has to expose themselves. "How do we deal with mistakes in this class?" works; "what is your greatest fear?" asks too much, and "what is democracy?" has an answer in the textbook. The theme stays on the screen for the whole conversation. You can also name it out loud, or let someone in the circle bring one. No theme in mind? Choose "AI writes them" in the preparation: you get a few conversation themes for your topic and the age of your class, and tap one. If you prefer your own assistant, such as Microsoft Copilot, copy the request from the same screen.

They sound alike and do the opposite. Conversation Café is one circle that stays seated: an object goes round, and after four rounds there is understanding, for a topic that is complex or loaded. World Café is a conversation at several tables in which everyone moves on, and the gain lies in what the tables find together. Choose Conversation Café to go deeper together, World Café to gather broadly.

A Socratic conversation examines one concrete experience of one presenter, led by a facilitator, step by step towards a wise attitude, mainly for teams that want to go deeper. Conversation Café has no presenter and no facilitator in the circle: everyone speaks about the same theme, the stone shares out the turns, and you only keep the time. The first is an inquiry, the second a conversation.

Beforehand: choose the theme, set out the circles and have a talking stone ready for each one. At the start: read out the six agreements calmly. During the rounds: keep the time, do not take part, and do not step in when it goes quiet while someone is holding the stone. Only click on once the round has gone all the way round. In the free dialogue: remind the circle if needed that the stone still holds. In the closing round: one sentence per person, and do not ask further. After the closing round the player opens a short two-minute reflection, with one question on the screen. Keep it light: what everyone is taking away has already been said, so ask about the moment that stayed with them, not for a conclusion.

Vicki Robin, Susan Partnow and Habib Rose started the Conversation Cafés in Seattle in 2001: open conversations in ordinary cafés, where an object went round and a few simple agreements gave everyone the floor. Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless took the structure into their collection of Liberating Structures. The LudensFlow version follows the four rounds and the six agreements, keeps the teacher outside the circle, and has the player wait for you instead of cutting a round off by the clock.