Engineering Building A workspace boardroom pilot

22 Feb 2024

The flexible 22-capacity space will be able to cater to a flexible range of meeting types and is opening its doors on Monday, 26 February

Following colleague feedback, we’ve identified the need for space within the Engineering Building A workspace to accommodate 20+ capacity meetings and events within access-controlled areas of the building. In response to this, we recently announced that one of the quiet working rooms (Room 4A.059G, Fourth Floor, Core 4) will be repurposed into a new boardroom space, on an initial three-month trial basis.

Work has now commenced to repurpose the space, including fit-out of furniture and a temporary AV solution, with the new boardroom opening its doors on Monday, 26 February.

Size, layout and usage of the space

The new boardroom will accommodate meetings of up to 22 people (seated), with a flexible layout and movable furniture solution for different meeting styles e.g. larger conference calls, and board and team meetings.

With this flexible layout, we ask that colleagues return the furniture to the way it was originally set-up when leaving meeting, and advise colleagues may wish to arrive early and reconfigure the room if their meeting requires a specific layout. We also ask that colleagues ensure the room is left tidy and any catering consumed inside the space is properly disposed of for any meetings taking place after their own.

A temporary AV solution will be available inside the space from its opening, providing a projector to facilitate hybrid meetings when used with our bookable hybrid meeting owls. A permanent AV solution will be installed if this initial pilot is found to be a success.

Booking the space

The space will be bookable by staff on Resource Booker from its opening on Monday, 26 February, listed under the ‘MECD Meeting Rooms’ tile. When making a booking, we ask that colleagues provided an accurate description of the number of attendees and nature of the meeting to inform our understanding of space usage when evaluating this pilot project.

Evaluation of pilot project

As this is a pilot project, we acknowledge not everything may work as it needs to in the first instance so it’s important that we gather as much feedback and data as possible to evaluate its success.

After using the space, we ask that colleagues take a moment to scan a QR code which will be visible on the inside of the space to complete a short feedback form. There’ll also be a space inside the boardroom to provide any quick written thoughts. We welcome feedback via email to let us know any further thoughts around your experience and how we use the space going forward.

To evaluate space usage, Resource Booker data over the three-month trial period will be compared with existing space utilisation data conducted in the Fourth-Floor quiet working room before its repurpose and daily space utilisation captured in the Fifth-Floor quiet working room over the next three months.

Alternative quiet touchdown space

We recognise that touchdown space for quiet concentration is important for colleagues and this will continue to be available via the Fifth-Floor quiet working room (Room 5A.049B, Core 4) for the duration of this pilot - you can find this via our interactive map. We will also be providing additional desk spaces in this room to make sure as many people as possible can continue to access the space they need.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via TEAM@manchester.ac.uk