The Rise of the Huddle Space

This blog is written by our guest, David Gehringer, Principal at Dimensional Research. David has been conducting market research in the technology industry for the past 8 years. David is recognized as a technology industry leader who has consistently demonstrated that fact-based decisions drive revenue and success more reliably than a lucky guess.

With the rise of mobile workers, businesses are migrating to more flexible, open office environments. Huddle spaces – small meeting rooms designed for 5 people or less – are on the rise. A study from Dimensional Research delivers insight into the value Huddle Spaces deliver, and what technologies are needed to support them. One thousand participants from the United States and United Kingdom were surveyed, with company sizes ranging from mid-sized to large enterprise.

The research found the need for huddle spaces is accelerating, especially in open office environments. The reason is simple: huddle spaces deliver significant value to users and to the business. They provide the ability to have a quick meeting, give privacy, promote brainstorming, improve productivity, and remove noise.

Huddles spaces, while smaller than other meeting rooms, need the same level of technology as larger meeting spaces. People want simple audio and video conference capabilities. 93% of huddle space users want to use digital whiteboards to increase their productivity. Digital whiteboards directly support brainstorming by allowing everyone, regardless of geographic location, to participate. Participants said that the ability to easily save their whiteboarded work and share it is crucial, because pictures often convey more than words and increase communication efficiency.

Huddle space technology always needs to work. The research found that 78% of workers have been frustrated with meeting technology in the past, citing poor audio and video quality, solutions that stop working, and the inability to join meetings as top issues. That’s nearly four out of five workers reporting they are frustrated. These frustrations impact meeting participants, as well as the business, resulting in frequent support calls. IT staff and facility managers shared that the top technical challenges of managing huddles spaces are a result of using different vendors. Using different technology vendors often creates integration and compatibility issues, and requires IT to have expertise with multiple products. Using different vendor products also directly impacts users, because it requires more effort to understand multiple interfaces.

The research findings show that users want consistency in huddle space technology from one space to another. Consistent technology solutions allow users to be their most productive and not waste time and resources on technology support. The research also found that consistent technology in all meeting spaces delivers value to the business by reducing the time it takes to deploy new meeting spaces. This makes rooms easier to manage, and directly mitigates challenges for IT professionals and facilities managers.

As companies are looking to vendors that can provide huddle space technology, they also need to make sure they can get analytics that provide visibility into meeting space utilization. IT and facilities professionals want to see four key metrics for huddles spaces:

Metrics provide key information for IT professionals to be proactive and ensure meeting spaces are ready for users. That same data also informs facilities and real estate roles about whether the rooms are delivering value, optimal for meeting sizes, and if more meeting spaces are needed.

Meetings are an everyday occurrence, and meeting room technology needs to simply work, every time. To make users happier and reduce work for IT and facility teams, choose huddle space technology that makes your meeting experience simpler.