Lean Coffee

What is Lean Coffee?

Lean Coffee is a structured, but agenda-less meeting. Participants gather, build an agenda, and begin talking. Conversations are directed and productive because the agenda for the meeting is democratically generated. 

Where did Lean Coffee start?

Lean Coffee started in Seattle in 2009. Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith wanted to start a group that would discuss Lean techniques in knowledge work – but didn’t want to start a whole new cumbersome organisation with steering committees, speakers, and such. They wanted a group that did not rely on anything other than people showing up and wanting to learn or create.

How does it work?

The format for a Lean Coffee is very simple. This is intentional. It is meant to be the least structure necessary for a coherent and productive meeting. No more, no less.

Set up a Personal Kanban

In this Personal Kanban we have the items to discuss, what we are currently discussing, and the discussed columns. This provides a structure for the conversation. 

What to Discuss

People all get pads of post-it notes and a pen. They then start to add their topics for conversation into the “to discuss” column. These can be whatever people want to discuss or follow a theme. Encouraging as many unique ideas as possible.

Each topic gets a 1 to 2 sentence introduction. This way people know what to vote for.

Vote and Talk
Each participant gets two votes - they can vote twice for the same thing or for two different topics. A dot on the sticky they are interested in.Dots get tallied - then a conversation starts!

The power here is that you now have a list of topics everyone at the table is interested in and is motivated to discuss for real.

Source: https://leancoffee.org/