Priya Parker's "Art of Gathering" (https://www.amazon.com/Art-Gathering-Transformative-Meetings...) offers helful guidelines for planning a serious conversation

1. Purpose: a gathering starts with the invitation which should define its specific purpose. This purpose should be repeated at the formal start of the gathering.

2. Welcome List: deciding who to invite and who is not invited are critical steps in supporting a gathering’s purpose.

3. Venue: consider how it will help to support the purpose of the gathering. The size of the gathering will give it a different ambience with thresholds for a different experience roughly at 6, 12-15, 30 and 150.

4. Larger Purpose in Community: in addition to its primary purpose, a gathering should also serve to foster connections among attendees and increase a shared understanding of their needs and goals. This helps connect them with a community and a larger purpose that continues after the gathering.

5. Active Host: The host needs to act with “generous authority” to spell out and gently enforce clear rules of conduct to support the purpose of the gathering.

6. End cleanly: a gathering needs to have a clear end so that it finishes cleanly and energizes the attendees to fulfill its purpose.

I have blogged about facilitation and the value of roundtable conversation in

https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2019/08/02/key-lessons-from-pr...

https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2014/05/12/circle-the-chairs/

https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2014/09/15/guidelines-for-an-o...