Lean Coffee is a revolutionary way to structure meetings. It emphasizes the most efficient use of everyone's time and establishes an agenda that all participants can agree on.
Even without a leader present or prior planning, Lean Coffee makes it easy for individuals to suggest topics, and the group then votes on which topics should be discussed. This approach helps ensure everyone is invested in the meetings and that they are productive and worthwhile.
Each topic is allocated a five-minute time limit to begin. After five minutes, a majority vote decides whether to continue discussing it or move on to the next issue. With everyone taking part in the voting, no one individual or voice is at risk of dominating, which encourages participants to express their various perspectives.
When to use Lean Coffee
Lean Coffee is essentially just a set of regulations that imitate and turn into a game of the natural rise and fall of conversation. Therefore, it can be employed in nearly any organized social gathering. It also functions in any environment, from corporate meeting spaces to cafés and pubs. It's even possible to host them virtually by asking everyone to join a FigJam board with the Lean Coffee Template.
Moreover, Lean Coffee meetings can have any topic, but they are especially beneficial for team-based brainstorms or retrospectives. In a Lean Coffee brainstorming session, all topics suggested should be linked to the general theme. In a retrospective, each subject is an experience the participant believes the team should remember for future use. These assemblies work best with small groups (ideally no more than ten people), either as an individual trial or regularly (e.g., twice weekly).
How to host a Lean Coffee
Creating your very own Lean Coffee session is a simple process when you use the whiteboard tool from FigJam. To get started, select the Lean Coffee Template and then follow these easy steps:
- Ensure that you decide on a theme straight away. This is an optional step, but it can be very helpful if you have an issue coming up with topics. If you want to hold a brainstorm on retrospective, the theme is already here when you begin.
- Collect your discussion topics in the first column. You will need to ask everyone to add sticky notes with all preferred topics. It will keep the topics brief and on-point for express readability.
- You will be able to prioritize topics while voting. Use emojis to dot vote for all of your favorite topics to discuss. People can choose to spread their votes across topics or use all their votes on one singular topic.
- Start your timer and begin the discussion next. The group will easily be able to begin discussing topics in order of popularity. The person who has suggested the topic will have the opportunity to then discuss it in depth.
- Use majority voting in order to continue, stop, or indicated mixed feelings about the topic discussion. After five minutes have passed, the group can take the chance to vote on whether or not to continue talking or move on to the next topic.
- As you move from topic to topic, you can update the columns accordingly. To help everyone stay on track, move sticky note topics to being discussed or discussed.
- Then, wrap up the meeting and get everyone to contribute. Save the last five minutes of the session for asking each person to share their key takeaway or learning. If the majority of the group expressed that they’d like this type of meeting again, schedule one for the near future.
