Creative ideas for meetings

How to make your meetings more productive

Meetings and discussions have become indispensable in today's working world. They are the place where decisions are made, employees can exchange ideas or business deals are concluded. Studies show that many employees spend around half of their working time in on-site meetings, online meetings or telephone calls. Unfortunately, many meetings are not as productive as hoped. There are myriad reasons for this: meetings that are too long, too little focus on the goals, not enough room for inspiration and creativity... That's why in today's blog post we entirely center on creative ideas for meetings that will increase productivity and effectiveness of meetings.

Encouraging creativity, but how?

There are several ways and techniques to promote creativity in meetings. Design your meeting in such a way that you create an open and positive atmosphere. This is the basic requirement for productive collaboration. Encourage all participants to openly discuss their ideas and points of view. Good preparation is also important for a successful meeting. Go into the meeting with a clear structure and goals. It is crucial that the agenda also leaves enough room for creativity and spontaneity. But don't lose sight of the meeting’s purpose. In addition to an open atmosphere and a structure that leaves room for flexibility, you should also pay attention to the physical location of the meeting. An inspiring environment creates also inspired thoughts. This can be exciting architecture, colorful walls, works of art, a view of nature or a change of location.

Gurgl - Alpine space for inspiration.

Change of location promotes creativity

Meetings organized outside the office or familiar surroundings in particular create an inspiring and stimulating atmosphere. The reasons are varied:

Change of routine:
Anyone who breaks out of their usual routine creates new impulses for the brain and discards old or ingrained thought patterns.

New inspiration:
Impressions such as a foreign culture or different geographical conditions serve as inspiration for new ideas.

New perspectives:
The combination of fresh inspiration and thought patterns creates a change of perspective and paves the way for unusual points of view.

No distraction:
Without the distractions and obligations of everyday life, there is more room for creativity in unfamiliar places.

Team spirit:
A change of location strengthens the community of all participants, promotes mutual trust and thus contributes to a better exchange of ideas.

Gurgl Carat Congress Center in Obergurgl.

Therefore, Gurgl Carat is the ideal place if you need a little change of scenery as a creativity booster for your meeting. As a true "Alpine space for inspiration", Gurgl Carat offers everything you need for creative ideas for meetings over 2000 m. The halls and seminar rooms feature state-of-the-art technical equipment and can be flexibly adapted to your needs. Signature breakout rooms are available throughout the village for breakout sessions. The view out of the window into high alpine nature gives free rein to your thoughts and the fresh mountain air invigorates your senses. The excursion itself will strengthen the sense of community. But there are many more activities and offers on site that are perfect for teambuilding.

Creative techniques and tools for your meeting

In addition to the methods mentioned above, there are other techniques for generating creative ideas in meetings. We will introduce you to some of these tools in more detail:

Creative ideas for meetings

Brainstorming

Especially at the beginning of a meeting, brainstorming is ideal when it comes to generating creative ideas. The more people participate in brainstorming and the more diverse their backgrounds are, the more enriching the thoughts are. The main aim is to generate as many ideas as possible, to absorb them and allow them to take effect without evaluation or classification.

Discussion group

This technique is great after a brainstorming session. Once all ideas have been collected on a flipchart or whiteboard, the next step is to categorize them. It can either be done in a large-scale discussion with the entire group, or you can split the group into small groups. In order to promote creativity and original ways of thinking, the small groups should be as diverse as possible (in terms of subject area, expertise, experience, etc.).

Mind mapping

Another method that either follows brainstorming or can be practiced independently is mind mapping. This creative technique works on the visualization of thoughts and ideas by structuring them and is also suitable for showing connections and hierarchical structures. Starting with a central term or topic, all associations and subcategories that come to mind are written down.

Design thinking

Design thinking is another creative idea for your meeting. The method is particularly well suited for problem solving and product development. In essence, it is about gaining an understanding of the customer’s needs, developing ideas based on this and generating a "product prototype". Thanks to expert feedback and other ideas, the prototype is constantly being refined, so that in the end a product is created that is perfectly tailored to the users.

Creative ideas for meetings.

More tips for creative ideas in meetings

Finally, we will present a few other tips that will increase creativity in your meeting. First and foremost, it is important to structure your meeting to ensure that all participants actively take part in the meeting. You can do so by preparing a clear agenda, appointing a presenter, limiting the number of participants, using creative tools and actively requesting feedback. The follow-up to a meeting is important as well. Productivity only increases if the creative ideas from meetings are effectively put into practice. At the end of the meeting, set measurable and achievable goals that will be checked at the next meeting. The implementation of ideas can work in different ways: use strategic project management, try out prototyping, rely on multidisciplinary teams, promote communication among each other or test agile methods such as scrum or kanban.