World Cafe in a Masters Program taught by Charles Savage at Technical University, Munich

From Charles Savage (Thank you, Charles!):

As promised, here’s a small update on a TWC I hosted last evening at the Technical University Munich. I have a class of 84 students from 29 countries focusing on Sustainability in their master’s program.

Inspired by “graphic capture,” I asked myself, why can’t the participants make their own graphics? So since 2009 I’ve been running my TWC sessions inviting the participants to make different Discovery Maps in the different teams. It’s worked in India, Sweden, German and just now in January in a woman’s university, MBA program in Jeddah.

We then print these PowerPoint (single page) turned into PDFs, sending them to the printer and get poster size sheets (A2).

Then the fun begins as they move between tables, discovering the interconnections and noting these on a large (and long) piece of paper in the front of the room. In this way, they visually (and intellectually/emotionally) overcome the “curse of fragmentation” and begin to understand the deeper interconnectedness of all. We’ve also added a Hyperlinks Mapping element so that the underlying dynamics can better be understood after the session.

When I first created the Dynamic Teaming process in 1990, which morphed into TWC thanks to our IC Pioneers program at Juanita and David’s place in 1993, I committed myself to constant and continuous innovation in the process. And the results keep getting better. What really helps is the work that Eric Vogt, Juanita and David have done on teaching us the Art of Asking Powerful Questions. This re-ignites our inner “curiosity-motors,” essential for deep discoveries.

Enjoy a glimpse of our session last evening. We’ve added an artist who captures, in real time, what she calls ‘Atmospheric Visualization.” And to increase the deeper sense of resonance, we have one of the students play her flute – truly magic!