As a native Singaporean, I grew up in an environment with skyscrapers and almost everything man-made. When I finally got the chance to visit Finland and spent an afternoon in the Finnish Forest, I felt, for the first time in my life, what serenity feels like. Setting up HUONE, Evon and I wanted our guests to experience what the Finnish Forest made us, Asians, feel. As our biggest room in HUONE Singapore, we designed the room to be versatile, suitable for meetings and events of all sorts but more often than not, Forest Room is booked for big group workshops. So how does one decide on the layout for workshop?
Classroom
For workshops that are one-way delivery with no discussions and group work, classroom style is a preferred layout. This means setting up rows of tables with chairs like how you would see in a real school classroom. This is actually one of the layouts I avoid recommending because the most effective and productive (and hopefully memorable) workshops are those that involve engagement. If you do like and need to have this layout as part of your workshop, how about starting off the session with such a layout and having participants transform that into group setting and discuss further the key points of the workshop?
Cluster / Cabaret
As the most commonly used layout, this style involves setting up tables and chairs in groups. If the workshop involves a presenter, it is important to set up in cabaret style where nobody has their back facing the presenter/screen. The beauty behind this layout is the networking opportunities that come with this layout. When guests are seated in classroom style, they very often only get to interact with the people on their right and left. One tip to increase your success rate is to ensure that each group has a combination of people from different departments, industries, seniority or age as this creates room for different perspectives and aids the creative process.
U-Shape / Board Room
Unlike the extreme nature of classroom and cluster styles, U-shape / boardroom style is an in-between of these. A set up like this allows you to achieve a face to face interaction amongst guests and yet can also cater to presentations. A word of caution: if you require interaction, be sure not to do this with big oblong tables that builds some sort of a defense wall between guests.
The success of any workshop is dependent on many factors: caliber of presenter (engagement level, content quality and relevance, etc), workshop venue environment and layout, agenda structure, etc. As a rule of thumb, we always advise our clients to focus on the Goal of the workshop, Agenda, (creative) Location and Attendance. Good luck for your next workshop and pop by HUONE for a non-obligatory “Forest” tour with our team (:
Cheers,
Joewin