Stay Focused in Your Meetings with Lean Coffee

Stay focused in your meetings with Lean coffee

Have you ever sat through a meeting and said to yourself, "What a waste of time, I could be getting my work done?” Meetings often run haywire because everyone either focuses on just one idea or goes off-topic completely.

The Lean Coffee canvas is a great solution to this. The idea originated when Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith wanted to discuss lean techniques in coffee shops in Seattle but didn't want the cumbersome process of organizing with steering committees etc. “With 'Lean Coffee' all you need to do is show up!”

You can use the template in the dive deeper section to set up your own structured meetings with minimal preparation. Here’s how it works:

1. Brainstorm topics (5 mins) 📝

• Ask participants to add topics they’d like to discuss to the “topics” column • Do this in the first five minutes of the meeting or before the meeting starts • Use one sticky note or individual entry for each topic

2. Vote on topics (3 mins) 🗳️

• Allocate 3 votes to each person - use a colored dot, an emoji, or a checkmark • Ask people to vote on their topics - they can put all 3 on one topic or distribute more evenly • Move the 3 topics with the most votes into the “to discuss” column

3. Start a timeboxed discussion (5 mins) ⏳

• Pick your first topic (most voted), and move it into the "discussing" column • Start the timer for 4-6 minutes and start the discussion • You can go round one-by-one to make sure everyone has a chance to be heard

4. Continue or stop ⏯️

• At the end of a session, as a group, decide whether to continue discussing or finish • Ask members to give a 👍 to continue and 👎 to stop • If more 👍 - start another timer for half the time (2-3 mins) and repeat the process until the group is done discussing the topic • If more 👎 - move the topic to the “done discussing” column and go to the next topic

If there’s a disagreement or even split between stopping or continuing the discussion, move the topic into a "special box".

Here, those interested can choose to continue the discussion outside of the meeting, and inform others of any relevant outcomes or decisions.

5. Collect action items throughout ✔️

• Add all action items discussed in the meeting in a dedicated area • At the end of the meeting, review and assign each item to a team member • Follow-up on these before your next meeting and move them to the “done” column

When to use the Lean Coffee format

Here are a few situations: • When there are a lot of things to cover and you’re concerned about going off-track • A 1:1 with a team member where you want to keep track of all the discussion points and action items • Casual virtual coffees or mentoring sessions where you want to maximize the output

Want to make your meetings more productive? The Lean Coffee format is a great way to go from Zoom fatigue to Zoom focus.