The Knowledge Café: Create an Environment for Successful Knowledge Management

Knowledge Café is a process for creating, exchanging, and optimizing knowledge, whether in-person or virtual. This popular and practical knowledge management tool supports a culture where projects and innovation thrive.

The Knowledge Café is a mindset and environment for engaging, discussing, and exchanging knowledge within a group either face to face or virtually. At the café, participants can discuss hard-to-solve project issues or resolve a family or community crisis. This metaphorical town square supports knowledge circulation and rejuvenation and increases its velocity—making it a breeding ground for innovation. The aha moments at one Knowledge Café can match the benefits of multiple conferences, workshops, and training put together.
 
When knowledge management (KM) is part of an organization’s culture, performance improves, collaboration increases, and the competitive advantage accelerates. No one can force knowledge transfer. We must create the right environment where knowledge is freely shared, rewarded, and fun. This book demonstrates why the Knowledge Café is such an effective KM tool and shows how to design optimal café experiences and increase learning agility. 
 
The premium on knowledge and agility has never been greater. This book offers a technique for managing knowledge toward the greater good. Tips; templates; practical and relatable experiences; case studies; and examples of knowledge brokers, creators, and sharers across cultures are sprinkled throughout the book to show how the café interfaces with other KM techniques and in different work and project spaces. 
 

Benjamin Anyacho, MBA, PMP, is senior project manager and enterprise knowledge management lead at the Texas Department of Transportation. He is an expert in project and knowledge management and participates on several national and global panels, research projects, boards, and committees on these topics. Anyacho is executive director of the nonprofit Apostolic Bridge Builders Inc. in Austin, Texas, where he lives with his wife, Precious, and two teenage children, Ben and Amara.