For which purposes it is used
The Knowledge Café does not have one specific purpose – it can be put to many different ends (see the table of uses below) but it should always have a purpose.
You start with the purpose and design a Café to fulfil that aim but other than setting the theme and posing the question no desired outcomes should be articulated. The outcomes of a Knowledge Café are emergent, they should not be pre-planned. There is a fine distinction between a purpose and an outcome.
A purpose might be to build better relationships, to understand an issue better or to learn from each other while an outcome might be to make a decision or to define a plan. A purpose is a form of outcome, but it is broad, it is not specific.
Some Knowledge Café purposes:
Share knowledge and learn from each other
In many organizations some (school) departments, teams or individuals regularly outperform others, which is especially common with groups of students. Bringing these groups together to have conversations around specific issues, problems or technologies is an excellent way of sharing critical knowledge. This technique can be used for education at school and the groups can be built up with students for sharing knowledge.
Connect people and build relationships
Many people in the school do not know each other well. This leads to misunderstandings, erosion of trust and the inability to work together well. One of the simplest and most effective uses of a Café is to connect people and improve the environment of the class or among peer-teachers.
Gain a better understanding of a complex issue
In a fast-changing, competitive environment the consequences of change are not always obvious, and one person rarely has all the insights. The Café allows a conversation that brings diverse perspectives together to make a better sense of an issue.
Identify risks or unintended consequences associated with a project
Many projects get well underway when serious problems arise – ones that were foreseeable if only time had been given over to thinking about the risks beforehand. Convening a Café specifically to discuss the risks of a high-profile project is well worth the investment.
Surface hidden problems
Many problems in an organization go unseen as people do not realize the consequences of their actions or lack of action. By bringing people together from different departments and getting them to talk to each other, the conversation can help surface such problems.
Surface opportunities
Opportunities to develop new practices or ideas; work in new ways; form new relationships between teachers, especially the ones who have lectures to the same class abound schools. Those teachers need to do meetings and criticize about the same class and It is rare that time is found to identify such possibilities. The Café is an easy way to do this.
