Did you ever have someone monopolize a conversation? Did you ever see someone that had a lot to say but didn’t speak up? Lean coffee is meant to give quiet folk an opportunity to get their 2 cents (err… 8 minutes) in. If you hate the conversation, don’t worry… it won’t take the whole meeting! I find I learn more from topics other people bring to the table than the ones I think I want to talk about. This is a good technique for problem solving and collaboration. I suggest people use this technique at work and in the community!

What you need:

• sharpies or pens
• sticky notes
• table & chairs
• and people of course!

What you do:

1. Decide on a theme for discussions (...or go w/o a theme if your are feeling adventurous)
2. Create name tags with stickies.
3. Create a kanban board on the table with 3 columns – To Discuss, Discussng & Done (or any variation thereof)
4. All participants write topics on stickies and place them on the table.
5. Everybody has 2 votes and can mark the stickies with a dot to vote. You can use both votes on one sticky or vote on 2 separate ones.
6. Stack rank the discussion backlog (the To Discuss column) based on the order of most popular topics
7. Start a timer for 8 minutes and begin the first topic.
8. When the timer goes off, everyone does a Roman Vote (thumb up, down or sideways) to denote desire to continue the current topic. If the majority wants to continue, start the timer for 4 minutes and continue.
9. Repeat #8, but continue for 2 minutes. After this, topic is over.
10. Move onto the next topic.
11. Wrap up with a round robin of takeaways (taking a pass is an option too)