BA Cafe – Context & Planning
Joan Davis, Pete Cohen and I ran the first BA Café (which is a take on the World Cafe
) on the 27th April. As this was a pilot, it was a free event to understand your needs, test the technology and the process itself.
Joan and Pete did the lion’s share of the work with Pete at the helm of MaestroConference (supports audio conference with multiple breakout rooms) during the cafe with Joan designing, planning and running the event.
Preparation took place over several weeks. Considerable effort goes into designing these events to ensure they generate the results. Much of this is about designing the questions that are challenging, positive and inspiring.
Whilst there is a great deal of design and thinking that goes into the event, the BA Café itself is free flowing and driven by the participants. The theory behind this approach is that ‘the knowledge is in the room’. In other words, individual insights and experience are very powerful when shared and discussed within the group. It is intimate and informal with small conversational groups of 4 people. But it also gathers the insights of the entire group together.
World Cafe
Have a look at this video to understand the principles of the World Café. This was recorded by Anna Ulanova who is our graphic recorder – this is another important element where the group’s insights are represented in a graphical form.
We also benefited from support from Strenner Szilárd as a second graphic recorder.
BA Cafe Pilot Illustration Examples
You can see the result of our BA Café below (supplied by Anna).
And here are Szilard’s contributions:
We would like to run BA Cafés in the future but we can only do this by understanding what you would find most valuable.
If you would like to be kept informed or have any special requests, please provide some details here.
Would like to run your own BA Café in your organisation or your local IIBA Chapter? Would you like to discuss some ideas about the BA Cafe?
Everyone involved in this pilot gave their time for free and I would like to thank them all for their commitment and efforts.
If you’re interested in graphic recording, feel free to contact Strenner Szilárd or Anna Ulanova.