Some personal thoughts on why I'm interested in it and how this topic came up.
When I attended a Dev Camp last year, there was a short introduction to Lego Serious Play in a barcamp session. I was excited and wanted to try it out for myself. As I don't have a budget, I went looking for online material and searched for old Lego bricks at home. I'm generally interested in Scrum and preparing workshops. So it's a very cool way to do a retrospective in a new and interesting way!
Why is it useful?
When might I need an LSP workshop? One example would be a retrospective with your agile team. But Lego Serious Play could also be used for strategy, business model development, organisational development, process design, innovation, team development and idea generation.
When to use?
Team Building
Creative thinking gets some innovation thoughts
Work out a solution of a shared problem
Create shared mindset
Constructive discussions
Build a shared vision
Example tasks:
Build a model of how you imagine our company in 2025
Recreate our product at the end of the year in Lego
Solve our problem and represent this solution in Lego
Advantages:
Hands-on Building: Participants use Lego bricks to construct 3D models that represent their thoughts and ideas.
Metaphorical Expression: This approach enables non-verbal expression. The use of Lego bricks enables participants to create metaphors and symbols that represent complex concepts or challenges, leading to deeper insights and a better understanding of the issues at hand.
Storytelling: Participants are encouraged to share stories about their Lego models to express the meaning behind their creations and promote deeper communication.
Problem-Solving and Decision-Making: This method is often used for problem-solving and decision-making processes. By physically building models, participants can explore different scenarios and visualize potential solutions.
Engagement and Creativity: The activity also fosters engagement and creativity. Lego Serious Play is a method that promotes engagement and creativity by tapping into participants' subconscious thoughts and encouraging them to express ideas in a playful and imaginative way.
It has gained popularity as a unique and effective tool for fostering collaboration and innovation. Although not universally applicable, it can be a valuable tool for facilitators and organizations seeking to improve communication and problem-solving skills among their teams.
Here are some exercises that could be used to get started:
1. Warm Up Exercises:
Duck (5-10min):
Build a duck using 7 bricks
Explain how it is a duck – are different peoples ducks similar?
Now remove 3 bricks so that you have 4 left
Explain how it is still a duck
Tower:
Build highest tower in 3min
It should be able to stand without any support
Use all bricks
Share something about your tower, test for stability
Dream colleague
Build a model with your dream colleague, 3min
Share 1 min per person
Facilitator asks questions to better understand
Take one aspect from each model and make a shared model with others in the team and place it on a paper
Everybody should agree on all the parts of the shared model
Everybody on the team explains the shared model
My Monday mornings
Build a story describing your Monday mornings 3-4mins
Share your metaphor and storyline
2. Future Success:
Build a model which shows the road blocks to you immediate and future success
Build a model describing what your future will look lie without the barriers
Build a model which shows what you need from others and yourself to knock down the barriers to your success
Combine your models which will show how you will get support from the team/group
3. Team Member:
Build a model showing who you are in the team
What do you bring to the team?
What could you bring to the team?
Build some of the functions that you carry out on the job, also include some hidden aspects of you
Build an addition to your model that shows how you think others in your team perceive you
Who are you at your best?
Build an additon to your model showing your thoughts about this – what characterizes you when you are at your best?
4. Team:
Build an individual model showing how you perceive your team:
Show what you believe your team is all about
What is the spirit of the team?
The feel of the team?
The values of the team?
Build a shared model that shows what your team is all about
What is the team’s shared perception of the team?
What is the spirit and the feel of the team?
5. Team aspirations:
Build an individual model showing what you aspire to be like as a team in the future
Build a shared model
Each person explains each part of the shared model
6. Team Goals:
Build a model describing the goals for the team
Build a model describing the objectives to meet the goals (first steps to meet the goals)
Build a model with the objectives in the form of a storyline to show when in time they should be completed
7. How do you see yourself?
Build a model describing how you see yourself in your role (team member, scrum master, product owner, manager..)
8. Your role:
Build a model describing your role on the team
What is easy in your role?
What is difficult in your role?
9. Strengths and weaknesses
Build a model showing the strengths of you product, team, organization,..
Build a model describing how you can utilize the strengths
Build a model showing the weaknesses
Build a model describing how you can remove or compensate for the weaknesses
10. Retrospectives
Build a model describing what went well
Build a model describing things that we should start or stop doing
Practical Part: Sprint Retrospective
FigJam Board of an LSP Retrospective: I provided an example for an online and offline retrospective using Lego bricks. Take a look!
Findings and Feedback
It was fun
Not everyone is as fast as others when building with bricks
In Miro, it is quite difficult to build with the bricks even for very advanced Miro users
I'm not sure how Lego Serious Play (especially in Miro) can be used for larger workshops
“I thought the Lego games were really cool. Maybe it’s because I just like Legos, but those playful challenges are just fun too! I’m not sure if it leads to better results (well, I don’t think it helps me personally to structure my thoughts better or anything, because then I focus too much on building :smile: ), but just today I felt very revitalised afterwards and felt like I had more energy for other things again. ”
