RunsheetFacilitation

Lean Coffee

ComplexityLow

Time30-90 min

Participants3-20

FormatWorkshop

MaturityEstablished

Preparation

What needs to be ready before start

Materials

Whiteboard or Miro board with three columns (To Discuss, Discussing, Discussed); stickies; timer (visible to everyone, for example cuckoo.team); dot voting option; shared note area for action items.

People / roles

A facilitator controlling timer and voting; three to twenty participants with equal speaking rights; a scribe for notes and action items.

Pre-read

Overarching theme or setting (for example Engineering Guild, Sprint Retrospective Team A); expectation (no predefined agenda); explain format to all invited participants so no one comes with presentations.

Time needed

30-90 min

Setup

Place three columns on wall. Announce voting rule (typically 2 dots per person). Fix time slot per topic in advance (typically 5 min, then Roman vote: continue, another topic, end). Open action-note area.

Core question

The one question this method answers

Which topics this group brings today deserve discussion time, and which insights or actions follow from them?

Flow

Marker: Minute

Step	Duration	Action	Hint
10-10 min	10 min	Collect topics in silence: each person adds one to three stickies to To Discuss, with short titles. Then allow 30 seconds per sticky for the author to explain.	With over 15 participants, filter topics in small groups first. Otherwise explaining takes more time than discussion.
210-15 min	5 min	Run dot voting: each person places 2 dots. Sort topics by votes. Top topic moves to Discussing.	Voting should be silent and simultaneous, not turn-based. Otherwise the first vote influences the next votes and dynamics are distorted.
315-75 min	5-60 min	For each topic, run 5-minute timer. Then Roman vote (thumbs up/down/sideways): more time for this topic (+4 minutes), next topic, or end. After end, move sticky to Discussed.	Roman vote is method discipline. Without strict application every discussion expands indefinitely. Facilitator enforces timer even when conversation is interesting.
475-90 min	5-15 min	Collect actions: at least one outcome (insight, follow-up meeting, owner for action) per discussed topic. Photograph Discussed column as protocol.	Without action or captured insight, discussion loses impact. Not every topic needs an action, but each needs an entry in the protocol.

Artifact

What comes out at the end

Form

Short Markdown or Notion protocol with date, participant list, all topics (with vote counts), notes per topic discussed, action items with owner and deadline, and board photo.

Versioning / ownership

One entry per session in a series (wiki path or Notion database). Link previous sessions to make recurring topics visible, so patterns become obvious.

Tool alternatives

Miro or FigJam with lean-coffee template
Trello board with three columns
Notion page with live notes
Physical whiteboard with photo export

lean-coffee-working-template.md

Compact working template for Lean Coffee with topics, votes, timeboxes, and outcomes.

Lean Coffee Working Template

Goal

Run a self-organized discussion with visible topic selection and timeboxing.

Context

When and for what do we use this method?

Input

Which data, observations, decisions, or materials are available?

Working area

Topic pool:
Votes:
Timeboxes:
Decisions to continue or stop:
Action items:

Output artifacts

Prioritized topics:
Discussion notes:
Action list:

Open questions

Next step

Owner, date, and success signal.

Example output

Concrete filled scenario, fictional example

lean-coffee-beispiel.md

Concrete filled scenario, fictional example

Lean Coffee — Engineering Guild Backend, 14.05.2026 (60 min, 11 participants)

Topics (with votes):

(7) How do we handle flaky tests in CI? — discussed.
(5) Postgres 16 upgrade strategy — discussed.
(4) Should we use gRPC for internal services? — discussed.
(3) On-call rotation for new teams — parked.
(2) Tech talk format — not discussed.

Discussion 1 — Flaky tests (5+4 min):

Suggestion @ben: quarantine tag for flaky tests, automatic issue for 2 failures in 7 days.
@anna adds: pytest-rerunfailures as interim fix, max 2 reruns.
Action: Spike "Flaky test quarantine in CI" — owner @ben, outcome by 28.05.

Discussion 2 — Postgres 16 (5 min, closed):

Consensus: pgvector demand makes upgrade attractive. Staging test in 4 weeks.
Action: draft upgrade plan — owner @lisa, due 04.06.

Discussion 3 — gRPC (5+4 min):

No consensus. @marcus sees value for three services, @anna warns about tooling overhead.
Action: ADR draft with pro/con — owner @marcus, review at next Lean Coffee 28.05.

What to do

For over 15, split into two Lean Coffees or run topic voting in small groups before plenary. Open Space fits better above 25 participants.

Stop criteria

Done signals checkable in under a minute

A hard decision mandate exists that must be decided in this session, which requires a moderated decision meeting with pre-read.

Hierarchy is dominant in the room (management present in otherwise flat group), and equal discussion cannot be maintained.

Topics are all already known to the facilitator and deeply prepared, no need for lean format.

Group is fewer than 3 participants, method adds less value than open discussion.

Session is intended as formal reporting or status update; Lean Coffee does not fit.

Discussion needs deep preparation per topic (for example architecture review), but lean slots are too short.

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