Lego Serious Play is a creative, imaginative and story-telling based approach that since 2002 has been successfully adopted by businesses ad organisations all around the world. LSP has proved to be an effective solution for team building, strategy, co-creation, concept, conflict resolution… And its efficacy can be tracked back to the key theories that have been included in the development and formalisation of LSP: from management, Psychology of play, Imagination, Embodied cognition, Metaphors, constructionism… They are all perfectly integrated in the Lego Serious Play experience and deliver unexpected results efficiently. This presentation tells who adopted this approach and the whys.

1. Patrizia Bertini
Legoviews
Twitter: @Legoviews | Web: Legoviews.com June 2014 (C)

2. LSP origins

3. Theory in Management
Johan Ross & Bart Victor
IMD Gineva
Mid ‘90’s
Robert Rasmussen
LEGO
Head of LSP
Trainer

4. Constructionism
Constructionism shares constructivism’s
connotation of learning as ‘building knowledge
structures’ […]. It then adds the idea that this
happens especially felicitously in a context
where the learner is engaged in constructing a
public entity.
Seymur Papert
Concrete Thinking
Concrete Thinking

5. Embodied cognition
[the mind] arises from the nature of our brains, bodies, and bodily
experiences. This is not just the innocuous and obvious claim that
we need a body to reason; rather, it is the striking claim that the
very structure of reason itself comes from the details of our
embodiment…
Lakoff & Núñez

6. Metaphors
“The mind is inherently embodied.
Thought is mostly unconscious.
Abstract concepts are largely
metaphorical.”
Lakoff

7. Hands On!

8. NO, Not Bottom or Top Views NO, Not Bottom or Top Views 

9. Why did they used it?

10. They wanted to change this

11. Into this!

12. …avoid Pareto…

13. …and get 100% from everyone…
Most creativity emerges
when different points of
view are held in
reciprocal tension, so
that they play off one
another, evolving into a
new idea.
Leadbeater

14. Hands & Brain Connection

15. Brain – Hands connection

16. Playing
In playing, we create imaginative new cognitive combinations. And in creating
those novel combinations, we find what works.
Brown

17. LSP is a Roller coast ride

18. Fantasy
Fantasy allows you to THINK about something that wasn’t there
before… regardless that it can be done or it can exist
Munari

19. Invention
Fantasy allows you to PRODUCE something that wasn’t there before…
Even if not perfect or functional Munari

20. Creativity
Creativity allows you to PRODUCE something that wasn’t there before,
that is working & functional, based on Invention and Fantasy.
Munari

21. Imagination
Imagination allows you to IMAGINE what Fantasy, Creativity, and
Invention PRODUCE. Munari

22. Imaginations
Descriptive
Identify Patterns & sense making
Creative
Combine & transform the existing
Challenging
Deconstruct & sarcasm
STRATEGIC
IMAGINATION
STRATEGIC
IMAGINATION

23. Bricks: a common Language

24. LSP is about storytelling
Sometime reality is
too complex.
Stories give it form.
Jean-Luc Godard

25. From object to ideas (Metaphors)

26. From ‘I’ to Team

27. How do you get it… Individual
models

28. …Landscapes & Meta-stories…

29. …Shared models…

30. What for?

31. What you get…
More participation
More stories
More ideas
More insights
More ownership
More fun
Easier negotiation
Better decisions