Lego Serious Play

LEGO Serious Play (LSP ) is a facilitated process which combines the advantages of the game and of modeling with LEGO bricks with the serious concerns of the business world. LSP may be in companies, teams, and also used with individuals and to promote new ideas, improve communication and speed issue resolution.

In LSP workshop, the workshop participants will develop as new business strategies, develop or improve team collaboration, or they analyze crisis situations and work out this solution concepts. The moderation of workshops carried out by certified LSP moderators who are to control the LSP process so that the objectives of the workshop are achieved by the participants themselves.

The LEGO for these workshops specially compiled LSP boxes contain an extensive choice of Lego bricks, with the help of the workshop participants models and metaphors develop their point of view on the various aspects of their business and the other participants communicate.

As advantages of LSP, the following points are mentioned:

• Promoting creativity and innovation by modeling with hands
• Improve communication about the comprehensible Lego models
• Incorporating the knowledge and experiences of all participants in a LSP workshops
• Promotion of common understanding of the issues

History

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

Over several years and in more than twenty iterations of LEGO Serious Play process was formalized and optimized. Early 2002 LEGO Serious Play then presented to the public and is now an official line of LEGO. Since June 2010, LEGO has made the basic principles of LEGO Serious Play under a Creative Commons license publicly available.

Among the users of LEGO Serious Play today include major corporations, government agencies and NGOs (such as SOS Children's Villages ) in the academic and public sectors.

Scientific Basis

A central element of LEGO Serious Play is the hand - brain connection that is particularly strong sensory and motor compared to other body regions (see homunculus in neuroanatomy ). Our hands are with 70 - connected 80% of our brain cells. Research has shown that thought processes in conjunction with physical movement and sensation - and especially with the hands - lead to a deeper and long-lasting alia understanding of the environment and their options. The topics are not only visualized, but are " understandable " by building the metaphorical models in the truest sense of the word. Insight, inspiration and imagination should be encouraged.

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

• Game - the game is defined as a spatially and temporally limited, structured by rules 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 of the adjustment and the shift of attention and roles, it forms a natural environment in which a voluntary or unconscious therapeutic or cathartic experience is possible. With the help of models and metaphors of the object of the game can take on a certain meaning and abstract concepts give a figure. Formal relationships that would otherwise be difficult to understand, can be concrete in this way. The existing in-game design competition motivates the players to peak performance and often produced during the games flow leads to full absorption of the player in action to intense exercise and maximum participation and motivation. LSP is to make these positive elements of the game for serious applications available.

• Constructionism - The constructionism is based on the ideas of Seymour Papert, which are based in turn on constructivism of Papert's colleague Jean Piaget. Under constructionism refers to a way of formal to make concrete, visible, tangible, manipulative and therefore easier to understand abstract ideas and relationships. Papert's research has shown that people learn something especially when they construct something, be it the design of a product, building a sand castle or writing a computer program. When people construct real things, then they simultaneously construct theories and knowledge in their thinking. This new knowledge allows them to build much more complex real things, which in turn leads to a further gain of knowledge, etc. This process continues in a self-reinforcing cycle and is in LSP by the constant use of the Lego bricks in building Lego models and also in explaining this " comprehensible " models promoted.

• Imagination - The different cultural connotations of imagination (or imagination) lead to at least three meanings: the ability to make something an image (descriptive imagination ), the ability to question things ( Challenging Imagination ) and the ability to imagine something new ( creative imagination ). The interplay of these three forms of the imagination is called by the LSP developers as strategic imagination, the origin of all original strategies in companies.

Applications of LEGO Serious Play

There are four basic LEGO Serious Play applications:

• Real Time Strategy for the Enterprise: This application of LSP is used for strategy development for companies, organizations or individual subunits and teams. The common identity is analyzed and presented in the context of of and outward -acting factors. In the safe context of Lego models possible scenarios of future developments are played and guidelines for flexible and targeted responses to unforeseen situations be inferred.

• Real Time Strategy for the Beast: With this application to concrete problems or critical risks are analyzed and it will be developed strategies for dealing with the problems or risks. It goes LSP assume that the knowledge about problems and risks, and the ideas for the optimal handling of these are already available within the organization and need not be introduced from outside (eg consultants).

• Real Time Identity for the team: This application is designed to help teams to develop a common understanding of the identity and responsibilities of the team and the individual team members. It is optimally designed internal cooperation and the full potential of the team to be harnessed.

• Real Time Identity for You: This application is intended to or the subscriber ( s) help to analyze and represent their own identity. It also takes into account how it is perceived by others and how they will evolve in the future. It is then to be worked out, which the circumstances and behaviors promote the desired optimal development and how these can be achieved.

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