1. What
   1. Is Lean Coffee?
      1. Founded by Jim Benson & Jeremy Lightsmith in 2009 in Seattle
      2. Rudimentary kanban system for facilitation of powerful democratic discussion
      3. Minimal rules
         1. Everyone is encouraged to add any topic to the backlog
         2. Brief introduction of people in attendance (~5 minutes)
         3. Brief clarification of backlog items by submitters (~2 sentences)
         4. Group votes with dots of hashmarks on topics of interest to them as individuals.
            1. 2 votes per person
            2. Vote limit is vital to distilling passion
         5. Pull most popular topic into doing column and begin discussion.
         6. Discussion is time-boxed
            1. Usually 8 minute initial time-box subsequent time-boxen are half (4 mins)
            2. When time-keeper notes elapse of a time-box there is a silent "roman vote"
            3. Silent does not mean "everyone stop talking" it means we all throw up a thumb.
            4. Thumb up = "4 more minutes please"
            5. Thumb horizontal = "meh" (ambivalence)
            6. Thumb down = "I'm ready to move on"
         7. No commitment to end on time
            1. We'll take note of the planned finish time and decide if we want to continue
         8. "Take away" <new rule as of 05-30-12>
            1. Go around table and share something you take away from today's discussion.
            2. Not Mandatory, anyone can "pass"
2. So What?
   1. How is this "lean"?
      1. "Pull" system
         1. Group gets to choose the topic "just in time"
      2. Focus is on value delivery to the customer (us)
      3. Eliminates waste typical of trad. meetings
      4. Quality is built in
         1. Conversation is always amazing so amazing people are attracted.
   2. Psychological benefits
      1. Putting your idea on a sticky gets it out of your head
      2. You become fully engaged instead of waiting for your turn
   3. Quality of conversation is usually amazing
   4. Organic opportunities to share life/business challenges are rare
   5. Environment facilitates learning unlike any other I've ever seen.
   6. Not just for "lean" not just for "coffee"
      1. Overhead extremely low e.g. stickies & pens/sharpies/crayon whatever
      2. You can do it anywhere
         1. At work, before, during, after.
            1. At home with family to discuss anything (vacation? chores? how is school/work? what can we do better? )
3. Now What?
   1. You can use this format to facilitate nearly any kind of meeting.
      1. Planning
      2. Retrospectives
      3. Extremely powerful as "Kaizen" organizational transformational tool. (see Modus Cooperandi)
   2. Facilitation patterns for lean coffee
      1. Human facilitation ususally trumps rules
      2. Cynefin model driven stories about anecdotal results of experimentation with the process.
      3. Everyone should be encouraged to facilitate
      4. Nobody should ever be forced to facilitate
         1. Group will usually gravitate towards a facilitator and self-org around right culture of meeting
   3. DO IT NOW!
      1. Don't wait, find a coffee shop with a table and invite people, not only will they come, but it'll be great.
      2. Don't do this in a vacuum, please share your experiences with the growing worldwide Lean Coffee community.
         1. Google Group
         2. Facebook Page
         3. Twitter hashtag
         4. Blog
         5. ?