Designing Meetings Like Coffee Breaks: A Tribute to Harrison Owen and the Power of Participatory Methods

This past month, on 16 March, marks one year since the passing of Harrison Owen, the creator of Open Space Technology (OST)—a method that radically reimagined how we gather to solve complex challenges. His influence in the field of group facilitation cannot be overstated. And for those of us who've dedicated our lives to hosting meaningful conversations, his legacy is both personal and professional.

When I introduce myself as someone who creates spaces for dialogue, I do so grounded in a lineage of participatory approaches. At the heart of these methods lies a deceptively simple idea: what if we designed our meetings like coffee breaks? That is, with the same energy of spontaneous exchange, deep listening, and shared curiosity.

Harrison Owen discovered this quite literally—after organizing a major conference, he was told that "the best part was the coffee breaks." Instead of seeing that as a failure, he saw it as inspiration. OST was born out of that insight. Its core principles—self-organization, passion bounded by responsibility, and the freedom to move where your energy takes you—challenge traditional hierarchies and enable people to take ownership of what matters most to them.

A few years after OST emerged, another participatory method began to gain traction: The World Café. Created by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, this approach is more structured than OST but rooted in the same belief—that conversations matter and that wisdom resides within the group.

In a World Café, participants rotate through small-group conversations, usually around key questions. Each round builds on the previous, creating a collective sense-making process that leads to emergent insights. Unlike traditional panel formats or one-way presentations, World Café invites everyone into the conversation, breaking silos and amplifying diverse voices.

OST and World Café: Similar Roots, Different Structures

While OST and World Café share common values—openness, participation, trust in the group's intelligence—they differ in design:

• Open Space is emergent and self-organized. The agenda is created by the participants themselves at the start of the session. It's best for open-ended, complex, or even chaotic situations where leadership wants to tap into the system's collective intelligence.

• World Café is structured but fluid. It provides a light facilitative framework to explore pre-designed strategic questions. It's ideal for stakeholder engagement, visioning, or surfacing themes that need collective reflection.

I often integrate both methods into my facilitation practice. And I'm proud to say that their principles were alive and well during a recent World Café I hosted at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. There, a high-level group of participants gathered to discuss the future of Portugal's National Health System and, importantly, the role of municipalities in shaping a sustainable and equitable health service.

It was a living example of what these methodologies were meant to achieve: dialogue with purpose, design with humility, and collective ownership of what's next.

👉 Learn more about how I use the World Café format in my work:

As we mark the passing of a great pioneer, I'm reminded of how these seemingly simple methods continue to transform not just meetings, but the way we think, decide, and lead together.

Thank you, Harrison. The circle remains open.

About the Author

Paul Nunesdea is the English pen name of Paulo Nunes de Abreu, an IAF Certified™ Facilitator, Master of Ceremonies, author, and publisher of the Architecting Collaboration book series. He designs and facilitates high-impact events for corporations, public institutions, and civic organizations across Europe and beyond.

As the curator of Architecting Collaboration, Paul writes about the intersection of collaboration, facilitation, and digital transformation, drawing from decades of practical experience and system thinking. He is also the founder of col.lab | collaboration laboratory, which serves as a hub for innovation in meeting design and participatory processes, including its spin-off, Debate Exímio Lda.

In the health data space, Paul leads the Health Data Forum, a UK-registered charity advancing ethical AI adoption and digital health transformation. He spearheads the Data First, AI Later movement and manages a curated network of independent consultants specializing in health data governance and AI strategy.