Where Do We Meet? Key Factors Influencing Collaboration Across Meeting Spaces

Abstract: Over the past years, there has been a shift towards online and hybrid meeting forms in workplace environments, partly as a consequence of various COVID-19 restrictions. However, the decision-making process on how to best collaborate with team members is predominantly driven by practical concerns. While there is a significant body of literature about where to best meet, this knowledge is fragmented across various disciplines and hard to use in novel meeting solutions. We present the Cross-Space Collaboration model which identifies the main factors that drive the features of in-person collaboration and the meeting aspects that influence these factors such as cognitive load. We designed the model to give guidance to teams and individuals on how to meet in order to have a higher collaboration effectiveness. Finally, we outline how the model can bring added value within new meeting solutions, next generation virtual reality meeting spaces and educational settings.