Lego Serious Play is exactly what it sounds like: Putting playfulness into your serious work and student life.
In this article I’ll present what Lego Serious Play (LSP) came to be, a few ways how to use Lego Serious Play, the resources we have at CODE to make use of it and some impressions of use cases we had so far at CODE.
What is Lego Serious Play?
Lego Serious Play was invented by the LEGO company itself in the mid-90s to make use of their infamous blocks in their corporate setting. The methodology has spread far since then, there are numerous companies who use the blocks for different purposes. While Lego originally offered a certificate program that cost wanna-be-LSP trainers thousands of Euros, they opensourced the methodology in 2010. That means, anyone can call themselves a LSP-trainer/facilitator.
The basic structure of an LSP session is the following:
- You get a challenge to build something.
- You build it.
- You share what you build and what else you connect with it.
Building gives you time to “think with your hands”, being limited in the blocks sometimes means that you have to build something differently than you thought, through which you might gain a new angle on your idea as well.
Most importantly, LSP can help to empower anyone in a team to share their perspective. In meetings which are not facilitated it can be difficult to be heard or taken seriously by the rest of the group for different reasons, usually connected to some biases:
list of 5 biases
Through LSP everyone gets time to talk about their ideas through explaining what they build.
Lego Serious Play at CODE
We currently have 5 the Lego Serious Play starter kits and some additional mini figures at CODE. You can find them in the shelf opposite of Zuse, where the boardgames are. Just make sure that if you borrow it, you put all the Lego pieces back in (also be careful with the holes for cables in most tables at CODE.
If you want to learn about Lego Serious Play, either download the introduction manual or have a look at our library. We have the following book as a resource to learn more about LSP:
The LSP Method. How to Engage People and Spark Insights Using the Lego Serious Play Method.
by Michael Fearne
How to use Lego Serious Play
In my experience Lego Serious Play can be used in a few different ways
