Knowledge Café: Small Group Design The ideal small group size is three or four

Over the years, in running my Knowledge Cafés, I have discovered through experimentation and observation that the ideal size of a group for interactive conversation is three or four people.

The ideal size for small group conversations in a Knowledge Café is three or four people.

Depending on the number of individuals taking part in a Café and the availability of suitable sized tables, it is not always possible to have three or four people at a table. In this case, five people are OK but no more.

Anything more than five and the conversation does not work so well: one or two people tend to dominate; the conversation breaks into two, even three; frequently, one person is totally cut out of the interaction, and there is little energy in the group.

To have a good conversation, you need to be in touching distance of each other, and each person in the group needs to be equidistant.

If the availability of suitably sized tables is a problem, then the Café can be run without tables.

Research into the influence of group size on conversation confirms this ideal group size.

These two settings are ideal:

Posts that link to this post

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•  The Case of the Vanishing Café Participants Challenges from a virtual Knowledge Café

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