Meeting Room Planning Blunders to Avoid

Planning a business meeting is not as daunting as it sounds. Having said that, a lot can go wrong if you rush the preparation stage, or if it’s not well thought through. One of the biggest mistakes a novice meeting organizer makes is with the location. A nice room does not guarantee a successful meeting if it’s difficult for attendees to find the location. There’s also parking to consider. There’s nothing people hate more than having to drive around searching for somewhere to park their vehicle. These two things combined will give you a room full of stressed attendees before you even begin. Anyone who rents a meeting room or a conference room from Office Evolution in Hackensack won’t run into either location or parking issues.

Location is not the only thing that can upset the applecart when planning a meeting, but it should be the first consideration on your list. Let’s take a look at some of those other traps that can make an otherwise good meeting go south.

Business Meeting Bloopers

No two meetings are identical but they are still meetings, that is, gatherings of two or more people with the hope of achieving something. There are, however, some very common meeting bloopers that can and often do result in negative outcomes. There are two main categories of faux pas; one concerns the actual meeting space and the other with the meeting organizer (we’ve got a separate article for meeting organizer bungles).

Most common meeting plan blunders include:

Bad location
No parking
Low tech environment
Not enough chairs, poor seating arrangement
Disruptive environment

Not all Meeting Spaces Work for all Situations

We’ve already touched on a bad location and difficult parking, but there’s also an issue with the meeting space. Go into any coffee shop and you will often see small gatherings of people trying to hold work-related meetings. It’s not unusual to see those same groups looking frustrated whenever there’s noise and commotion going on around them. They shouldn’t be irritated though. Coffee shops are public spaces that invite people in to kick back and enjoy themselves. But patrons aside, the industrial coffee grinders can be deafening. These are not distractions members and visitors have to put up with when they rent a professional meeting space from a coworking center like Office Evolution.

Owners of coffee shops and small eateries are under no obligation to ask paying guests to keep the noise down so that others can conduct official business. These public places might work for some, but if you want to make a lasting and professional impression, you need to think carefully about the meeting room, its location and the nearby parking options. A public meeting space can never guarantee you’ll enjoy a successful meeting.

Low-Tech Environments

Another blunder novice meeting organizers make is that they don’t check the connectivity options for the rooms. If you need internet, and there is none, or it’s slow, that’s going to create a major headache. Signal black spots are another annoying thing. It’s important to stay connected these days, especially during business hours. If your attendees have to leave the building every time they need to make a quick phone call, that could really set things back. Ideally, your environment should be plug-n-play ready, and the building needs to have a good mobile phone signal. If you need technology, make sure you have a connected, high-tech environment before you even consider your meeting space.

Professional, modern conference rooms and meeting rooms at our coworking business center in Bergen County, NJ are setup for success. That means they’re truly plug-n-play and include a TV screen, speakerphone, whiteboard, beverage bar, and staffed reception. You can rent our ready-for-action conference rooms for less than an hour to many days. Learn more here.

What – No Chairs?

It sounds like an avoidable blunder and it should be. But anyone who’s attended meetings will have surely come across the seat shortage issue. Scratching around looking for extra chairs at the last minute because you got the count wrong is a terrible start. It happens though, and it happens a lot. And even if you have enough chairs, there’s still the seating arrangement to consider for your business meeting. This is another common blunder that’s totally preventable. Tables also need taking into consideration. Perhaps a round table would work better than a rectangular setup. How about the room size? You can’t really have a space that’s too big, but you can certainly have a room that’s far too small. Think carefully about the tables, chairs, and the room layout in the preparation stages.

The four typical meeting room layouts (chair and table setups) include:

Town hall (rows of chairs)
U-Shape (tables setup in a U shape)
Classroom or training (rows of tables)
Boardroom (one large rectangular table)

Each of these meeting room layouts has its pros and cons, so be sure to choose with care.

Disruptive Environments

People disruptions and external interruptions can really mess with a meeting. If you rent a professional meeting room or conference room you have control over interruptions to a point. You just need to let others know that you’re not to be disturbed while the meeting is on. If your meeting is in a coffee shop or other public space, then you’re open to both disruptions and interruptions. If your meeting is in a private room, you may still suffer from external disruptions. It all depends where you hold your meeting, so it’s important to evaluate your space in advance. For example, if a meeting room is in a hotel, does its door open into a major thoroughfare? If yes, then there could be all kinds of noise coming in from outside, and there’s nothing you can do about that. It’s the small considerations like these that could make or break a business meeting.

—-

At Office Evolution Hackensack, we provide virtual office, coworking, and private office solutions. We offer meeting rooms, offices, a coworking lounge, a shared reception, a business address, and virtual receptionist services. We have many options and price points, and all terms are flexible. Plus, you become part of a community of like-minded professionals.

Whether you live in Teaneck, Bergenfield, Maywood, Teterboro, Hasbrouck Heights, Moonachie, Little Ferry, Rochelle Park, Dumont, Bogota, River Edge, New Milford, Hackensack, Englewood, Paramus, Tenafly and other communities nearby in Bergen and Essex counties, choosing Office Evolution Hackensack in New Jersey will help you be more professional, productive, and profitable.