Historically, most collaboration occurred through formal, scheduled meetings having many participants. As a result, organizations have had years of experience building conference rooms and other formal meeting spaces. These spaces were designed to facilitate large group work processes, efficient exchanges of information, and decision making.

However, two elements of collaboration have fundamentally changed, both from the perspective of employees, and their organizations. First, employees increasingly desire social connection and engagement as part of their collaborative experience. Second, organizations need both operational excellence—and innovation—to succeed. Operational excellence is related to process efficiencies such as speed of group decision making. Innovation is nurtured through informal, social, creative interactions. This combination of shifting employee expectations of group work experience and emerging enterprise needs is driving the charge towards a greater variety of collaborative workspaces.