Huddle rooms are small spaces (normally for 4 to 6 people) designed for the employees to organise spontaneous meetings in reduced groups, arrange quick video chats, coordinate conferences or view presentations. The main purpose of a huddle room is improving communication and coordination within a team. Groups requiring to organise improvised or unplanned meetings use this kind of room very often, creating private spaces for small groups.

As it happens with team sports, normally there is a need for quick meetings to analyse a specific play and there are not many office areas with the appropriate configuration for this kind of gatherings. In an open space office people tend to not have meetings at the desk so that they do not become a distraction for the rest of the team and due to the lack of privacy. In fact, a recent study shows that face to face communication in open offices gets reduced in a 70%.

As well as enhancing face to face communication, huddle spaces are used to hold rapid brainstorming sessions and informal meetings and to review projects.

There is no fixed version of a huddle room, but there are some key features defining it:

Small size

The space is normally configured to accommodate up to six people, which allows for more privacy. Huddle rooms do not requiere much space actually.

Easy to use

Huddle areas must be equipped with technology that is easy to use by everyone and ready at any time. As noise and distractions are very common in most offices, specially in open workspaces, huddle rooms mean a quiet and private place for reduced gatherings.

Flexible

Huddle spaces are not designed for long meetings, they are small and flexible spaces. Large scale conference rooms can be booked for longer sessions, they are designed “outwards” while huddle spaces are thought for non scheduled meetings.