Catalog
method#Product#Delivery#Governance & Facilitation

Lean Coffee

A facilitated, time-boxed meeting format for structured, participatory discussion and democratic prioritization of topics.

Lean Coffee is a facilitated, time-boxed meeting format for focused, participatory discussions without a preset agenda.
Established
Low

Classification

  • Medium
  • Organizational
  • Organizational
  • Intermediate

Technical context

Video-conference tools (Zoom, Teams)Digital whiteboards (Miro, Mural)Task trackers (Jira, Trello)

Principles & goals

Participatory topic creation and prioritizationTimeboxes as a focus mechanismTransparency and documented outcomes
Discovery
Team, Domain

Use cases & scenarios

Compromises

  • Dominant voices can skew prioritization
  • Timeboxes may lead to superficial outcomes
  • Lack of follow-up leads to lost actions
  • Use clear timeboxes and a visible timer
  • Encourage everyone to suggest topics
  • Document decisions immediately

I/O & resources

  • Participant topic suggestions
  • Timer or time control
  • Visualization tool (board, whiteboard, tool)
  • Prioritized topic list
  • Assigned actions and owners
  • Brief record of decisions

Description

Lean Coffee is a facilitated, time-boxed meeting format for focused, participatory discussions without a preset agenda. Participants propose and democratically prioritize topics, addressing each in short iterations. It is useful for retrospectives, community sessions and ad-hoc decision making. Promotes focus, shared ownership and efficient time use.

✔

  • Quick prioritization of topics by the group
  • Encourages equality and engagement
  • Efficient use of limited meeting time

✖

  • Not suitable for very detailed, long decision processes
  • Depends on active participation
  • Requires facilitation discipline and preparation

  • Number of topics handled per hour

    Measures efficiency and throughput of discussions.

  • Decisions/actions per session

    Counts concrete, assigned actions after the session.

  • Participant satisfaction

    Short survey on perceived usefulness and efficiency.

Startup retrospective

A small product team used Lean Coffee weekly to prioritize blockers and make quick decisions.

Community meetup

A developer community ran Lean Coffee sessions for knowledge sharing and spontaneous topic blocks.

Product idea sprint

A product team used Lean Coffee to prioritize many ideas in one day and assign owners.

1

Explain rules and timeboxes

2

Let participants propose topics

3

Prioritize topics (e.g. dot voting)

4

Discuss each topic in a fixed timebox

5

Document outcomes and actions

6

Clarify follow-up dates and responsibilities

⚠️ Technical debt & bottlenecks

  • Growing list of unresolved topics without owners
  • Missing integration with task tracking systems
  • Inconsistent facilitation practice leads to inefficiency
Dominant participantsPoor facilitationUnclear follow-up
  • Using it as a substitute for deep workshops on complex topics
  • Running sessions without clear time structure
  • Only dominant voices discuss; no broad participation
  • Too short timeboxes prevent meaningful discussion
  • Topics remain unaddressed due to missing prioritization
  • Lack of clear documentation leads to missed actions
Basic facilitation skillsTime managementAbility to document outcomes
Rapid topic clarificationParticipatory decision makingTemporal efficiency
  • • Limited meeting time
  • • Depends on team culture
  • • Requires physical or digital board