Dry Erase Painted Wall Etiquette for Meetings

It’s a common scenario at brainstorming sessions to see the person in charge standing in front of the office whiteboard or dry erase wall with a marker in hand, taking input from team members. As ideas are continuously brought up by the team and then quickly tossed aside by the session leader, friction in the room can build up fast. Meetings like this are intended to be collaborative and interactive but are often just the opposite, causing a team’s spirits to sink and the meetings to be tiresome and ultimately unproductive.

Brainstorming meetings should be exciting, exploratory, and interactive, with everyone involved as equal partners in creating and developing new ideas. In light of what many business experts define as “best practices” for brainstorming sessions and other meetings, the following is a set of guidelines that can change the way you conduct your office gatherings. If you follow these “rules of dry erase wall etiquette” at your next team meeting, you’ll help to improve communications among your coworkers and hopefully raise their morale and productivity as well.

Use the Correct Type of Dry Erase Marker and Pass it around the Room

The first step to take before you start your next meeting is to stock up on high-quality low-odor dry erase markers that produce dark, distinct markings. In this way, you can ensure that your meeting’s contents will be easily read and understood by all participants. Then, once the meeting begins, the first rule of dry erase wall etiquette is that no one team member should be in charge of writing notes on the wall during the meeting. Research shows that people feel most comfortable sharing ideas at meetings when they’re invited to participate in the action.

So, simply handing a dry erase marker off to a colleague at a meeting builds a hospitable environment that promotes idea sharing during the meeting and beyond. You can treat the marker as if it were a microphone: when it’s in a team member’s hand, it’s their time to share. Better yet, you can hand out markers to everyone so that several people can write their ideas on the wall at the same time and thus further promote team collaboration and creative expression.

Use Multi-colored Markers to Aid in Effective Communication

Color-coding the information and ideas you post on your dry erase wall with multi-colored low-odor dry erase markers will give everyone at your meetings better insights into the relationships among various ideas and facts. Using this approach also shows that you care enough to provide an easily understood visual categorizing system to help your team better grasp a meeting’s content.

Use a different-colored marker for each topic related to the project, plan, or brainstorming ideas posted on your dry erase wall. Each group of ideas or facts involved with a specific topic should appear in its own color so that it will be easier for team members to distinguish the various kinds of data involved. The primary goal of color coding is to divide and systematize information, and this is easily achieved when a dry erase wall is your primary medium of communication in brainstorming for a project or completing a project that’s already started.

Always Write Legibly Using Sufficient Ink and Block Lettering

Print handwriting, also known as printing or block lettering, is viewed as being clearer and easier to read than cursive or “joined together” writing and is also ideal to use on your dry erase wall. Although it may require more time to print content than to use cursive, printing helps your team members more easily grasp what you’re communicating without having to repeatedly ask questions about what’s being written or the meaning of the text.

When printing on a dry erase wall, it’s good etiquette to use sufficient ink, to strive for dark, distinct, and separated letters, and to strive to make your letters more legible than you would if you were writing notes to yourself on paper. In this way, team members who may be sitting further away from the dry erase wall will still be able to make out what you’re writing and focus more intently on the meeting.

Be Mindful of What You’re Erasing from Your Wall

Another important aspect of etiquette to keep in mind is that even though a dry erase wall stretches from floor to ceiling and corner to corner, its surface area is still limited. That’s the reason why it’s essential to be mindful of where what, and how you write and erase content on your wall. A major rule of thumb is to only erase work that you produced. Adhering to this guideline will help ensure that all of your team members feel they’ve played a role in the meeting, without thinking that some people’s ideas were given more priority than others. If you really have to erase another team member’s work, it’s a good idea to check with that person beforehand to make sure what they wrote is no longer relevant or needed.

Stick to Your Pre-established Meeting Schedule

Whenever a meeting goes on longer than scheduled, you inevitably lose your team members’ attention. This is primarily due to the way the human body responds to new input. As our brains process new information, our bodies need extra glucose and oxygen and increased blood flow to keep us alert. Studies show a direct link between mental exhaustion and the brain’s capacity to endure long exposure to intellectually challenging material. For this reason, many experts in cognitive psychology suggest that meetings should last no longer than one hour. However, if it’s necessary to meet for longer, it’s a good idea to take periodic breaks to help your team members retune their minds and grasp the topics of discussion.

Take Pictures of the Dry Erase Wall’s Contents when Finished

After a meeting such as a brainstorming session wraps up, before erasing your work, take pictures of what your team has come up with on your dry erase wall and send the pictures to the attendees and other appropriate parties for their reference, questions, and feedback. Doing so will allow the participants and other team members to study the final results of the meeting on their own and further develop the ideas into a full-blown project plan or proposal.

Clean up Once You’re Done Using the Dry Erase Wall

No one enjoys cleaning up after another team member in the workplace. Thus, as an office rule, you should state that every room and other space in the office, including your dry erase wall, should be left in the same condition it was found in. It’s hard to predict when visitors from outside the office, potential clients, or current clients will come to your building. For this reason, you and your team should be prepared for the unexpected by having your workplace always look as organized and presentable as possible. Don’t just wait for the maintenance crew to take care of all the cleaning and organizing in the evenings; proactively pursue a tidy work environment for the good of your team, your company culture, and your business image.

Use Only Microfiber Materials for Erasing and Cleaning

When it comes to your dry erase painted wall, remember to erase it thoroughly with a microfiber cloth after its contents are no longer needed by any of your team members. Also, periodic cleaning with a microfiber cloth and spraying of water or an eco-friendly cleaner designed for dry erase walls will keep your wall looking bright and attractive for ten or more years of regular use. It’s essential to only use microfiber materials for this purpose due to their unique structure, which allows their fibers to catch and hold onto the tiniest of dirt and dry erase ink particles, as well as bacteria.