A community roundtable is a highly interactive type of meeting to gather community members and facilitate a conversation in which members share what they are working on and solve problems together.
Roundtable discussions are designed to encourage knowledge sharing and peer exchange between community members.
You can organize a community roundtable by following the simple outline provided below.
What is a Community Roundtable?
A community roundtable is a highly interactive type of meeting to gather community members and facilitate a conversation in which members share what they are working on and solve problems together. The Roundtable can be facilitated in person, virtually, or as a blended event.
Why organize a Community Roundtable?
Roundtable discussions are designed to encourage knowledge sharing and peer exchange and provide a forum where community members learn what other fellow members are working on. Roundtables help build a sense of cohesion in the Community. They also help build relationships and trust by providing opportunities for members to get to know each other while working on real issues.
How do you organize and facilitate a Community Roundtable?
Consider the following aspects of running a roundtable:
Logistics/Preparation
Make sure that you decide on the following elements before the roundtable:
Group size: you could invite your entire Community though you would have to make modifications if you expect more than 40 people in attendance. For example, in a virtual roundtable, you may allow part of the conversation to happen in writing in the chat.
Time: As this is an activity to encourage participation, you want to make sure that there is sufficient time for everyone to engage. Depending on the size of the group, allocate between 45 minutes and 90 minutes to this activity.
Frequency: Roundtables are most effective in building cohesion in the Community when they are done regularly, for example, once a month.
Roles: there are different roles to be played during a roundtable. Consider building a rotation mechanism in which different members perform different roles every time you run a roundtable:
Greeter: welcomes people as they join
Note taker: captures notes and makes them available during and after the roundtable
Guest speaker: presents on a “hot topic”
Facilitator: leads the group through the agenda (typically, the community manager, or a member of the Core Team would perform this role)
Time keeper: keeps an eye on the clock, helping the facilitator run through the agenda within the time frame set for the Roundtable
Agenda
A typical agenda for a community roundtable includes the following elements:
Check-in [5-10 min]: welcome everyone and conduct a brief check-in so that participants can connect to one another and to the space. Check-ins set the context and tone for the event, and invite each member to be present, seen, and heard. (You can read more about check-ins and draw inspiration from these questions.)
Brief updates [5 min] invite 2-3 community members to share short, 1-2 minutes maximum, updates on what they have been working on recently. Identify and ask these members in advance to share quick updates. For each roundtable you can have different people provide brief updates. That way, community members get to know each other over time.
Compiling challenges [10 minutes] Ask each person to state their name and affiliation and then offer an immediate challenge they are facing in their work / domain area that they’d like help on. Call people in a random order to name their challenges. Instruct them to explain the challenge in only 2-3 sentences, and clarify that this is meant to be something tangible and practical, to get quick help in 5 minutes, not a complex persistent problem. The note taker captures all challenges on a visible physical or virtual whiteboard.
Hot topic [20 minutes] this section covers an issue that is important to the Community. For example, a good Hot Topic is one about which several members have been asking for resources or support. Identify and invite a topic expert (from within the Community or externally) to do a 10-minute presentation and then allocate 10 minutes for a Q&A session.
Rapid problem solving [40 minutes] the note taker will have compiled all challenges and made them publicly visible. Then each participant will have a few minutes of quiet reflection to read through the challenges and brainstorm possible ideas to share with their peers. After that, depending on the total number of people, you could stay in one group, or break people into multiple groups of 5-8 people and take 5 minutes per challenge during which time everyone contributes ideas.
After the time is up, encourage participants to connect with one another 1 on 1 if they have additional ideas or could offer help to one another for the challenges they offered.
Wrap-up: thank everyone for participating, talk about next steps (for example, upcoming events for the community) and finish with a + / delta activity where you ask everyone very quickly to offer plusses (“what went well today”) as well as deltas (“what could be even better if”)
Follow up
After the Roundtable, as with all events, make sure that you follow up within 24 hours if possible with notes from the roundtable, information about upcoming events, invitation to community members to connect 1 on 1, or to continue the conversation and / or peer support on the Community Platform.
I have been using the Community Roundtable activity model for the past 9 years. When we launched the Collaboration for Devleopment (C4D) Platform in July of 2012 we needed a way to convene new C4D Group - Community Managers and Community Leaders. We formed the Collab4Dev Community Mangers Roundtable C4D Group to support peer to peer dialogue online, then hosted monthly Community Roundtable meetings to discuss challenges, and solutions while we all were learning how best to utilize this new external social collaboraton tool hosted by the World Bank. Many of my client teams have utilized slightly different forms of the Community Roundtable. The COVID 19 Health Finance and Resilience CoP - used a slightly different model called Commuinity Round-ups during the Annual Health Financing Forum last July:)
Blog » Organizing a Community Roundtable
Organizing a Community Roundtable
Summary:
What is a Community Roundtable?
A community roundtable is a highly interactive type of meeting to gather community members and facilitate a conversation in which members share what they are working on and solve problems together. The Roundtable can be facilitated in person, virtually, or as a blended event.
Why organize a Community Roundtable?
Roundtable discussions are designed to encourage knowledge sharing and peer exchange and provide a forum where community members learn what other fellow members are working on. Roundtables help build a sense of cohesion in the Community. They also help build relationships and trust by providing opportunities for members to get to know each other while working on real issues.
How do you organize and facilitate a Community Roundtable?
Consider the following aspects of running a roundtable:
Logistics/Preparation
Make sure that you decide on the following elements before the roundtable:
Agenda
A typical agenda for a community roundtable includes the following elements:
Check-in [5-10 min]: welcome everyone and conduct a brief check-in so that participants can connect to one another and to the space. Check-ins set the context and tone for the event, and invite each member to be present, seen, and heard. (You can read more about check-ins and draw inspiration from these questions.)
Brief updates [5 min] invite 2-3 community members to share short, 1-2 minutes maximum, updates on what they have been working on recently. Identify and ask these members in advance to share quick updates. For each roundtable you can have different people provide brief updates. That way, community members get to know each other over time.
Compiling challenges [10 minutes] Ask each person to state their name and affiliation and then offer an immediate challenge they are facing in their work / domain area that they’d like help on. Call people in a random order to name their challenges. Instruct them to explain the challenge in only 2-3 sentences, and clarify that this is meant to be something tangible and practical, to get quick help in 5 minutes, not a complex persistent problem. The note taker captures all challenges on a visible physical or virtual whiteboard.
Hot topic [20 minutes] this section covers an issue that is important to the Community. For example, a good Hot Topic is one about which several members have been asking for resources or support. Identify and invite a topic expert (from within the Community or externally) to do a 10-minute presentation and then allocate 10 minutes for a Q&A session.
Rapid problem solving [40 minutes] the note taker will have compiled all challenges and made them publicly visible. Then each participant will have a few minutes of quiet reflection to read through the challenges and brainstorm possible ideas to share with their peers. After that, depending on the total number of people, you could stay in one group, or break people into multiple groups of 5-8 people and take 5 minutes per challenge during which time everyone contributes ideas.
After the time is up, encourage participants to connect with one another 1 on 1 if they have additional ideas or could offer help to one another for the challenges they offered.
Wrap-up: thank everyone for participating, talk about next steps (for example, upcoming events for the community) and finish with a + / delta activity where you ask everyone very quickly to offer plusses (“what went well today”) as well as deltas (“what could be even better if”)
Follow up
After the Roundtable, as with all events, make sure that you follow up within 24 hours if possible with notes from the roundtable, information about upcoming events, invitation to community members to connect 1 on 1, or to continue the conversation and / or peer support on the Community Platform.
This article is part of the WBG Communities of Practice Toolkit licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The toolkit features practical resources to help you develop impactful Communities of Practice. 📖 Learn more about the Toolkit. ▶ Access the Toolkit.