Small Meeting Room Hire in Peterborough If you were looking to hire a small meeting…
Peterborough Meeting Rooms
What are the key elements and activities required to organise successful meetings. There are two key stages planning the meeting and then activities and behaviour during the meeting. Peterborough Meeting rooms provides the ideal solution to one of the challenges, that of finding a venue.
In this article we will look at planning the meeting, including what’s the purpose of your meeting, timing of meetings and how to find a venue. Also covered are the best practices for letting people know, meeting the needs of individuals within the meeting and how to make an agenda.
During the meeting aspects such as setting up the room and things to bear in mind are also discussed.
When organised correctly and run properly meetings are an important way for people to come together for a common purpose. This article is aimed at helping you make your meetings productive, effective and importantly inclusive.
A major focus is to make sure everyone affected by the issue can be fully engaged in what’s going on and have their say if they want to. This helps make the meeting a good experience for different people and brings a wider range of perspectives into your discussions and decisions.
Ideally, when the meeting finishes (on time) everyone leaves the meeting feeling listened to, understood and positive about the group and any decisions or plans agreed.
Planning the meeting
Proper planning prevents poor performance and this is very true when it comes to meetings. Thinking about the meeting will be run, and practical choices like venue and agenda in advance will make a big difference on how the meeting goes.
What’s the purpose of your meeting?
You should always start by getting very clear about what you are trying to achieve. Being clear about purpose and objectives will impact on all kinds of decisions about how the meeting should work.
Knowing the purpose of the meeting is important to allow you to identify which people you need to invite. For example, imagine you are calling a meeting in response to developing a new product or service. Do you want to share information, start a debate, or capture ideas? Being explicit on your requirements will help people decide if the meeting is for them.
Whatever the main focus of your meeting, it will also be a space where people get a ‘feeling’ for what your group is like. The same group of people may meet for different meeting objectives. Therefore establishing a welcoming atmosphere and strengthening relationships as well as practicalities like decision making can be essential secondary objectives.
Timing of meetings
There are lots of factors affecting when people can turn up to meetings – and how focussed they will be when they arrive!
For significant, strategic business meetings, make sure you give lots of advance notice so that people have plenty of time to organised their diaries ( and arrange substitutes if they are unable to attend). Always show a finish time as well as a start time. Be flexible, if more people can fit it by having an earlier / later start time, or by making the meeting shorter, consider these options.
It’s easier to ask people about what timings would work for them in an established group.
If at the end of a meeting you are deciding about your next meeting time, make sure you also consult people who aren’t present.
For general / action / task business meetings, consider whether to choose a regular time, (e.g. the first Tuesday of every month). Over time this makes it easier to remember specific meetings, but has implications to people / teams who can never make that time.
Finding the best Peterborough Meeting Rooms
Where you meet has a big impact on how serious people take the meeting, how many people will attend, and how easy it will be for attendees to participate during the meeting.
Some of the key venue questions
- Location: Is it venue accessible by public transport? Is there ample free car parking at the meeting venue ?
- Comfort: Having enough space, the correct lighting and air conditioning can make it much easier to concentrate. Is the room self contained or is there background noise and distractions from other rooms or parts of the building?
- Accessibility: When you have a larger number of people to attend, whose details you don’t know contact them in advance to ask about their access requirements, and be prepared to move venues or adapt to accommodate them.
- Feeling comfortable: The space you are in will affect who feels comfortable, (for example holding a meeting in a religious building or public house may put some people off).
- Cost: A quality meeting room in a business centre will have a cost, but with great Wi-Fi, whiteboard, space to set up the room in the style you need, easy access and ample free car parking. Think of how much you will be able to achieve by being in a dedicated professional space !
Letting people know about the meeting
Whilst agreeing a meeting date and time verbally might seem sufficient, we would always recommend that details re confirmed in writing or through an electronic calendar system.
Using a system like Google Calendar allows you to invite attendees ( and see if they are attending) , add a location, time (start and end) and also add additional notes – so you can include an agenda as part of the meeting invite.
This way potential attendees get to see exactly what is being discussed and who is attending, which may encourage participation.
Key meeting roles
For regular meetings sometimes specific people will be assigned roles at the start of the meeting. The benefits to having designated people assigned in advance means they can prepare themselves, e.g. bring a laptop to take minutes. Meeting roles
Facilitator: the person (or people) responsible for helping your meeting achieve its goals, e.g. by keeping the group focused on the agenda.
Note / Minute-taker: someone needs to be responsible for creating a record of key points and actions from the meeting
For larger meetings additional roles could include:
- Someone to welcome new arrivals,
- Timekeeper person dedicated to keep the meeting to time,
- A dedicated person to introduce speakers, act as the microphone controller etc.
Meetings – people have different meeting needs
Any meeting style will make it harder for some people to participate, but easier for others
Simple meeting elements like
- For longer meetings when breaks are taken
- How information is provided and presented
- Whether the meeting should bee broken into small groups or have a single large discussion.
- Will information on topics to be discussed be provided in advance to delegates or just delivered on the day
Making an agenda
A meeting agenda is a list of what you intend to talk about, in what order. This might be a list of decisions you need to make, or broader topics to be covered.
Make sure your agenda items are prioritised and timed. We have seen agendas that run to many pages, where there is no chance that all the agenda items will be covered. This is bad practice and can lead to frustration if the item that you want discussing never makes it into the meeting.
Make sure you have an easy method for people to put agenda items forward. Ideally, send round the agenda with enough time to get input from people who can’t attend, (e.g. they could email the group). We would recommend using Google Docs if you are looking to establish a collaborative agenda as attendees can add and modify without suffering doc sync conflicts.
Sample Meeting Agenda
- 8.05 : Attendee Introductions – All
- 8.22 : Finance Report – Bert
- 8.35 : Sales Update – Shelia
- 8.55 : New product ideas – All ( Group discussion led by Mandy)
- 9.55 : Choose top 3
- 10.05 : Evaluation and set up action groups
- 10.15 : Close – set date of next meeting
During the meeting
Tips and ideas for helping your meeting run well are shown below, these are mainly the responsibility of the facilitator or organisers, but it helps when everyone pays some attention to making the meeting work effectively.
Peterborough Meeting Rooms – Setting up the room
Click here for detailed information on meeting room layouts. Choose a layout that will be welcoming and make it easy for attendees to participate. Circular tables work well for seeing each others’ faces and hearing each other easily. When the chairs are in rows, or even arranged grouped round small tables attendees may feel less exposed.
Lighting, background noise and acoustics, windows open or closed, temperature, easy availability of refreshments are all factors that can impact on concentration of attendees
Stay focused: A meeting is (usually) more productive if you can keep focused on one issue at a time. By having a designated facilitator they can draw people back to the topic at hand, and offering short summaries.
Make space for everyone to participate and the meeting engaging:
During the meeting make it easy for new people to take things on and to participate. Vary the format of your meeting so more people can concentrate and contribute. Vary presentation styles and discussion formats to keep attendees attention. 3 hours of presentations by spreadsheet will have even the most ardent numbers person yawning. If everyone is presenting info on PowerPoint then even the most creative of presentations can lose its impact.
Emotional disagreements and tensions :
Within business there are always going to be disagreements and tensions. Sales teams will sell products on deadlines that production cant make, Marketing will want to do activities to gain new customers that finance wont want to approve etc.
Many groups try to brush aside their differences and conflicts. Open and honest discussions are necessary to help to resolve any issues.
Meeting Activities
These roughly run in order, from beginning to end of the meeting:
Personal introductions
Lots of groups start meetings with an opportunity to hear from everyone. In a new group, that might be introducing yourselves and saying why you’ve come. In an established group, you might have a ‘check-in’ where everyone says how they are. If there are more than about 15 people, split into smaller groups, or keep contributions very short for this section.
Introducing the meeting
Check that all attendees know the purpose of the meeting. Explain anything new people need to know about how to participate.
Agreeing the agenda
Ideally the meeting will be able to start at agenda item 1 of the pre agreed agenda. Alternatively you may have to start from scratch or checking over a proposed agenda drawn up in advance.
Either way, agree a finish time, and then prioritise agenda items to make sure you can get through it all. As previously mentioned avoid huge agendas that will never get actioned. If there are lots of items then it may be that additional meetings will be required or the list will need to be split into topics for sub groups to go through.
Running through the agenda
Ideally in the order you agreed, focus on one thing at a time. If a new issue crops up, agree whether to leave it for another meeting, or if it needs to be addressed urgently.
Next steps
Make sure everyone knows what happens next. For example, set a next meeting date. Check you have everyone’s contacts to circulate minutes. A simple action document should be sent out as soon as possible after the meeting action / by whom / when
Making meetings social
After our Covid period of zoom meetings, having face to face meetings provides the opportunity to follow a meeting with an informal social. Look for an option that works for everyone who wants to take part, e.g. a bar that opens in the evenings, or sharing food within the meeting venue.
Peterborough Meeting Rooms near me
Contact Michelle Craig at Brightfield Business Hub on 01733 595885 or email Michelle Craig at arrange an appointment to see the wide range of Peterborough meeting rooms at BBH. Click here to have all your meeting room questions answered.
For information on short term self storage facilities that are ideal for businesses click here
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