A well chosen meeting layout enhances its productivity.
Special arrangements of tables and chairs, indoors or outdoors, the use of flip charts, (wall) projections, sound, colors, (natural) light, and smells are all interventions that can be implemented to get participants motivated in a creative meeting.
In his CRAFT Research Report 1, Nicolas Nova described the “Socio-cognitive functions of space in collaborative setting” (Nova, 2003). This publication refers to Steinzor, who showed “that seating arrangement in small collocated groups help to determine the individual with whom one is likely to interact: individuals in a circular seating arrangement interact more with individuals opposite rather than adjacent”, and the reference of Mehrabian and Diamond who observed “that in four-person groups, more conversation occurred among persons seated closer together and facing one another, but only for those sensitive to rejection”.
Hereunder a collage of meeting layouts
