I have just come back from a wonderfully stimulating week in Vancouver learning how to use Lego as a facilitation tool for problem solving and developing strategy. The goal of Lego Serious Play (LSP) is to allow teams to develop their ideas by creating 3D models of their organisational experiences thus allowing more creative conversations.
One of the key reasons the technique is so powerful is that everyone has to build and discuss their own model before contributing to a shared model ensuring that all participants contribute equally to the discussion. There is also a body of academic research that learning happens particularly well when people are engaged in constructing something external to themselves like a product (or Lego castle!)
The picture above is the model we made of what the ideal attributes the global network of Strategic Play facilitators would display. We then added a range of external factors that might impact the network and demonstrated how they could affect it via the choice of connector. The photo below shows two of my fellow trainees adding links from the external factors to the model.
I was trained by Jacqueline Lloyd of Strategic Play who sits on Lego’s educational development board. You can read more about the history of the development of Lego Serious Play here.