Lego Serious Play

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Lego-Serious-Play-Shared-Identity-Teamwork example

Lego Serious Play ( LSP ) is a moderated process that combines the advantages of playing and modeling with Lego blocks with the concerns of the business world. LSP can be used in companies, teams and also with individuals and is intended to encourage new ideas, improve communication and accelerate problem-solving.

In LSP workshops, for example, the workshop participants develop new business strategies, they develop or optimize teamwork, or they analyze crisis situations and develop solution concepts for them. The workshops are moderated by certified LSP moderators who are supposed to control the LSP process in such a way that the participants themselves achieve the goals of the workshop.

The LSP boxes specially put together by Lego for these workshops contain an extensive selection of Lego bricks that the workshop participants use to develop models and metaphors for their view of the most diverse aspects of their business world and to communicate them to the other participants.

The following points are mentioned as advantages of LSP:

  • Promoting creativity and innovation by modeling with your hands
  • Improvement of the communication about the comprehensible Lego models
  • Inclusion of the knowledge and experience of all participants in an LSP workshop
  • Promotion of the common understanding of the topics covered.

history

Lego Serious Play was developed at the suggestion of the main owner of Lego A / S Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen from 1996. At that time Kristiansen needed an effective process for innovative strategy development for his company and was dissatisfied with the conventional strategy development methods used at Lego. At the same time, the two professors Johan Roos and Bart Victor, at that time at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne , were looking for alternatives to conventional strategic planning. Together with Robert Rasmussen, the then head of product development for Lego Education, the development team for Lego Serious Play was found. Roos brought in the strategic background, Victor the understanding of organizational development and Rasmussen the learning and development theories.

The Lego Serious Play process was formalized and optimized over several years and in more than twenty iteration steps. Lego Serious Play was introduced to the public in early 2002 and is now an official Lego product line. Since June 2010 Lego has made the basic principles of Lego Serious Play publicly available under a Creative Commons license. The SERIOUS PLAY® brand remains protected even after this opening and Lego regulates its use by moderators in a brand guideline.

Today, users of Lego Serious Play include large companies, start-ups , authorities and also NGOs (e.g. SOS Children's Villages ) in the academic and public sectors.

Scientific basis

A central element of Lego Serious Play is the hand-brain connection, which is particularly strong in sensory and motor terms compared to other body regions (see Homunculus in Neuroanatomy). Our hands are connected to 70-80% of our brain cells. Research has shown that thought processes in connection with physical movement and sensation - and especially with the hands - lead to a deeper and longer-lasting understanding of the environment and its possibilities. The topics dealt with should not only be visualized, but literally "understandable" by building metaphorical models. Insight, inspiration and imagination should be encouraged.

The Lego Serious Play method is based on the following three research areas in the social sciences and epistemology:

  • Game - Game is defined as a spatially and temporally limited, rule-based and voluntary activity. The motivational basis of the game is described in the literature as primarily emotional. The representations used in the game are basically representations of the player's own affective knowledge. Since the game requires the ability to disguise and shift attention and roles, it creates a natural environment in which a voluntary or unconscious therapeutic or cathartic experience is possible. With the help of models and metaphors, the object of the game can take on a certain meaning and give shape to abstract concepts. Formal relationships that would otherwise be difficult to understand can be concretized in this way. The constructive competition that exists in the game motivates the players toperformat their best and the flow thatoften arises when playingleads to the player being fully absorbed in the activity, to intensive awareness and maximum participation and motivation. LSP aims to make these positive elements of the game usable for serious applications as well.
  • Constructionism - Constructionism is based on the ideas of Seymour Papert , which in turn arebased on the constructivism of Papert's colleague Jean Piaget . Constructionism is a way of making formal, abstract ideas and relationships more concrete, more visible, more tangible, more manipulative and therefore easier to understand. Papert's research has shown that people learn something especially when they design something, be it designing a product, building a sand castle or writing a computer program. When people construct real things, they simultaneously construct theories and knowledge in their thinking. This new knowledge enables them to build far more complex real things, which in turn leads to a further gain in knowledge, etc. This process continues in a self-reinforcing cycle and is in LSP through the constant use of the Lego bricks when building Lego models and also when explaining them "Understandable" models promoted.
  • Imagination - The different cultural connotations of imaginations (or imagination) lead to at least three meanings: the ability to form an image of something (descriptive imagination), the ability to question things (negative imagination,) and the ability to to imagine something new (creative imagination). The interaction of these three forms of imagination is called strategic imagination by the LSP developers, the origin of all original strategies in companies .

In a master's thesis , the usefulness of LSP in comparison to other methods for the development of brands was examined. It was found that although LSP can be very useful, it places high demands on the moderator.

Areas of application of Lego Serious Play

There are four basic Lego Serious Play applications:

  • Real Time Strategy for the Enterprise: This application from LSP is used to develop strategies for companies, organizations or even individual sub-units and teams. The common identity is analyzed and presented in the context of the influencing factors acting from inside and outside. In the safe context of the Lego models, possible scenarios of future developments are played out and guidelines for flexible and targeted reactions to unforeseen situations are derived from them.
  • Real Time Strategy for the Beast: This application is intended to analyze specific problems or critical risks and to develop strategies for dealing with the problems or risks. LSP assumes that the knowledge about problems and risks and the ideas for the optimal handling of these already exist within the organization and do not have to be brought in from outside (e.g. by consultants).
  • Real Time Identity for the Team: This application is intended to help teams develop a common understanding of the identity and the tasks of the team and individual team members. The internal collaboration should be optimally designed and the full potential of the team should be harnessed.
  • Real Time Identity for You: This application should help the participant (s) to analyze and present their own identity. It also takes into account how this is perceived by others and how it should develop in the future. It should then be worked out which circumstances and behavior optimally promote the desired development and how this can be achieved.

In addition to the basic applications developed by Lego described above, Lego Serious Play can and should be adapted for a variety of other applications and tailored to the needs of the user.

material

Lego Serious Play Identity and Landscape Set in the original packaging

Lego has put together four sets to use this method. Depending on the set, Lego bricks and Duplo elements are mixed. Lego sells the sets for around 27 to 700 euros. The sets contain up to 2,631 parts and are shipped in numerous plastic bags and a simple box for production reasons. Alternatively, the material can be rented from an unofficial rental company in pre-sorted moderation cases.

Lego Serious Play Sets
designation number of Parts Application area Remarks
Window exploration bag 49 Skills building Small selection of Lego bricks to introduce the method, from 10 to 45 minutes. One bag per participant. Sold in boxes of 100 pieces.
Starter set 219 Workshop basic material Larger selection of Lego bricks for short workshops, up to 90 minutes. One set per participant.
Identity and Landscape Set 2,631 Identity and landscape Suitable for longer and intensive workshops. One set per group of 6 to 12 participants.
Connections Kit 2,455 Connections and system Supplement to the Identity and Landscape Set for longer and intensive workshops with a focus on relationships and connections. One set per group of 6 to 12 participants.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ THE ORIGINS OF THE LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® METHODOLOGY website from Lego. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
  2. ↑ TRADEMARK GUIDELINES (ESPECIALLY FOR FACILITATORS) website from Lego. Retrieved September 11, 2017.
  3. ↑ Tobias Seidl: Use of LSP in the university. Retrieved January 8, 2019 (German).
  4. ↑ Sutton-Smith, B. The Ambiguity of Play . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
  5. ^ A b Vygotsky, LS Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978.
  6. ↑ Fein G. Pretend Play: Creative and Consciousnes in G. Görlitz, D. and JF Wohlwill (ed.) Curiosity, Imagination and Play . Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1987
  7. ↑ Papert, S. The Children's Machine . New York, NY: Basic Books, 1993.
  8. ↑ Gaining Insights Through LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® as a Brand Research Tool - LET IT CLICK WITH THE BRICK Master Thesis by Julia Trebbin. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
  9. ↑ Lego Shop website from Lego. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
  10. ↑ Lending of LSP material website from LeanSP. Retrieved October 17, 2017.