You should choose the room for a Knowledge Café with care.
If the Café is an organizational one – can you run it off-site away from one of the standard meeting rooms, or if on-site may be in the staff cafeteria?
The room should be small with a good ambiance and excellent acoustics. It should not be overly large, given the number of participants, and it should feel hospitable.
Participants should be seated at small tables, three or four people per table. The tables should be close together and arranged randomly in the room.
Square rooms are better than rectangular rooms, and there should be no central pillars that hide people from view.
The room size and layout should allow the participants in the last phase of the Knowledge Café to push their tables to the side of the room and form a circle with the chairs. Or ideally, there should be a separate area with separate chairs for the circle.
Join one of my upcoming Knowledge Cafés or workshops and explore Conversational Leadership in practice.
Engage in thoughtful conversation, challenge assumptions, and connect with others working in knowledge, leadership, and organisational change.