More than XP. More than one day.

Goldfish bowls provide broad-ranging discussion on a general topic. The session organizer doesn’t necessarily need to have strong opinions on the topic, and can act as a facilitator, scribe, audience member or active participant in the goldfish bowl.

A goldfish bowl is a bit like a panel discussion, but the people on the panel change during the discussion. The rules are:

• start with a small circle or semi-circle of about 5 chairs in the middle of the room;
• arrange all the other chairs facing towards these, so you have several concentric circles;
• the goldfish bowl has a topic which is usually quite broad, and the organizer usually asks two or three people to get the discussion started and explains the rules to the audience;
• during the discussion, anyone sitting on one of the central chairs can speak, but no-one else can;
• if someone wants to speak, they have to sit on one of the central chairs, even if it’s just to ask a question;
• one of the central chairs is always kept free for this purpose;
• whenever all of the central chairs are occupied, at least one person has to leave to create a new vacant chair.

Unlike a panel, it is usually self-moderating, and most goldfish bowls have a scribe or sound recorder to record the proceedings.