Arranging Your Meeting Room for a Productive Planning Session
Corporate meetings that include planning or brainstorming sessions need to be productive, need to stay on task and need to be in an environment that promotes clear, easy communication. The person conducting the meeting will be in charge of keeping the participants on task and moving them towards their goals, but the meeting planner can assist in creating an atmosphere that is conducive to communication and encourages participation simply by how she has the room arranged.
For example, any meeting planner worth her salt knows that attendees sitting in rows staring at the back of other attendees’ heads are not going to communicate as effectively or participate as fully as those who are seated in a manner where they can look each other in the eye easily as they speak.
Knowing this, the meeting planner can arrange to have the room set up in a configuration that will be conducive to productive planning or brainstorming. If there will be a note-taker at a whiteboard or flipchart making notes on what is being said, then the best configuration will be a U-shape with the note-taker and the person conducting the meeting positioned at the front.
This is also the best configuration for meetings that involve visual aids. If there is no visual, whiteboard or flipchart that needs to be seen by all, the best configuration to promote communication and participation is a circle or rectangle where all participants can see each other.
