This document provides a brief guide to conducting a Lean Coffee meeting, which involves gathering participants to democratically generate an agenda and have directed, productive conversations on prioritized topics. Key steps include creating a Kanban board with topics on sticky notes, pitching and dot voting on topics, using a timer to manage timed discussions that move down the board from "discussing" to "discussed", and locking in learnings at the end.

1. • A structured, but agenda-less meeting
• Participants gather, build an agenda, and
begin talking
• Conversations are directed and productive
because the agenda for the meeting was
democratically generated
A BRIEF GUIDE TO
LEAN COFFEE
1. CREATE KANBAN BOARD 2. WRITE ALL TOPIC IDEAS
Use sticky note pad. One topic per sticky.
3. PITCH YOUR TOPIC
Explain your topic to the group in a sentence or two,
be concise!
4. PRIORITIZE WHAT TO DISCUSS
Dot vote: each person has 2-3 dots; it is acceptable to have
multiple dots for a topic.
5. MANAGE FLOW OF CONVERSATION
Top votes in order are moved to “discussing” lane; Decide length
of conversation (5-8 minutes); Use timer.
At the end of time period, show of thumbs.
6. DISCUSS!
When done, move to “discussed”, pull next topic from ”to
discuss” to “discussing” lane.
7. LOCK IN THE LEARNING
Share your takeaways.
discussingto discuss discussed
Continue
same topic.
I’m easy. Next topic.