Serious Play Pro

The LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method is a facilitated process, the impact of workshops based on the method are, consequently, directly tied to the quality of the facilitation.

Therefore, purpose with our facilitator training program is to provide the facilitator with the insights, confidence and commitments necessary to prepare and facilitate the workshops in a way that gives maximum value to the end-user and has lasting impact.

February 13-16, London, England: Stage 1 and Stage 2
March 26-29, Eindhoven, The Netherlands: Stage 1 and Stage 2
May 21-25, The Hague, The Netherlands: Stage 1 and Stage 2
June 18-21, Toronto, Canada: Stage 1 and Stage 2
December 10-13, Copenhagen, Denmark: Stage 1 and Stage 2 (offered in collaboration with Robert Rasmussen)

More sessions may be added in second half of 2012, expect a session in September (Germany)

We will be following the updated program and use the new full facilitator manual developed by Robert Rasmussen and myself. The program meets the standards set by the Association of Master Trainers in the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY methodology.

Stage 1 gives a strong introduction to the method and how to use it with teams in personal relations. Stage 2 gives an advanced training in the method and on how to use if or business and organisational development

For more details please feel free to contact me by email (per.kristiansen@trivium.dk) or direct message via my profile on seriousplaypro.com

Crafting Strategy book

by Cambridge University Press

All Lego Serious Play friends should be excited about the new book that professors Loizos Heracleous and Claus Jacobs have just published.

The book “Crafting Strategy: Embodied Metaphors in Practice” focuses on creative approaches of strategy making.

Term “strategy” normally symbolizes future planning as top-down, structured, rational and analytical activity. However, in recent years we have observed that  creative, bottom-up ways of strategy making are frequently much more effective. Frequently Lego Serious Play has proven to be a great tool to support in this. It helps to dismantle inner walls of organizations and release the potential of ground troops. Hence – the authors use numerous examples from Lego Serious Play retreats that the they have observed to provoke thoughts of the managers and suggest alternative ways for more creative strategy making.

The book is full of rich imagery – photos of LSP sessions and resulting discussions have been analyzed in depth. All in all – it gives lots of interesting ideas for anybody who is interested in digging deeper into Serious Play methodology.

The synopsis of the book tells:
“The rationalist approach to strategizing emphasizes analytical and convergent thinking. Without denying the importance of this approach, this book argues that strategists must learn to complement it with a more creative approach to strategizing that emphasizes synthetic and divergent ways of thinking. The theoretical underpinnings of this approach include embodied realism, interpretivism, practice theory, theory of play, design thinking, as well as discursive approaches such as metaphorical analysis, narrative analysis, dialogical analysis and hermeneutics. The book includes in-depth discussions of these theories and shows how they can be put into practice by presenting detailed analyses of embodied metaphors built by groups of agents with step-by-step explanations of how this process can be implemented and facilitated. The link between theory and practice is further supported by the inclusion of several vignettes that describe how this approach has been successfully employed in a number of organizations, including BASF and UNICEF.”

Claus Jacobs

About the authors

Prof. Jacobs was part of the original team at the Swiss-based non-profit think tank Imagination Lab who helped to create the original concept of Lego Serious Play. They worked alongside with Lego Corporation and later with a number of international companies to carry out both theoretical and clinical research projects. Later Prof. Jacobs joined the University of St. Gallen where he has continued with his research activities on the subject.

Loizos Heracleous

Prof. Heracleous is the author of more than 50 articles published in leading journals and his wide range of academic interest spans from innovative strategising processes to culture and learning patterns in organisation change and development.

The book relies on research that the both Loizos Heracleous and Claus Jacobs have done over the years while they have helped people in several organizations to strategize using Lego Serious Play tools.

What do the others say?

“This is truly an amazing book. Combining meticulous scholarship with a plethora of illustrations, it succeeds in articulating an approach to strategy development that relies equally on philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Transiting such broad intellectual landscape is no small feat. These authors accomplish it in a way that will appeal to those who practice strategy as much as those who study it.”
– Steven W. Floyd, Frank S. Kaulback Professor of Commerce, McIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia.

“This is a persuasive manifesto for the role of ‘embodied metaphors’ in strategy work. The book reflects its topic. It is utterly serious in both its theoretical grounding and its practical advice. Rich in vignettes and illustrations, the book is also a pleasure to read.”
– Richard Whittington, Professor of Strategic Management, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

The book is available for pre-order from Amazon.com

I will be offering this workshop as a “pre-conference” workshop to this years Pegasus Systems Thinking Conference in Boston (I will also do short workshop on conference). Here is what Pegasus write on their website (http://pegasus.prod.ifpeople.net/pre-post-conference/pre-conference-workshops):

Scenarios are carefully constructed stories about how the world around us might—not will, not should—unfold over the years ahead. Scenario thinking challenges our mindsets about what could possibly happen so that we are able to develop robust strategies in an unpredictable and uncertain context. This seemingly simple yet sophisticated tool has a solid track record in improving the quality of strategic conversations and outcomes both within organizational teams and in multi-stakeholder, cross-organizational groups. By integrating the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY™ method into the scenario construction process, we engage more than just our heads, but also our hearts and hands, enabling us to make our thinking more explicit, the stories we create more powerful, and our actions more effective.

In this workshop, you will:

• Be introduced to the hows and whys of scenario thinking
• Experience the unique LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method
• Discover the rigor and value of using the process to make scenario thinking clearer and more explicit, leading to better strategy
• Apply these tools to your own specific strategic challenges

For more info feel free to contact me, or even better, register on the Pegasus website

Stuart Brown. Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul

A few months ago when I was doing my preparations for TEDxTartu talk about play@work I started reviewing popular sources for materials that cover connections between playfulness and work. I found out vast literature. In two extremes mostly – either related to developmental psychology or about (what Plato calls) “frivolous play”: play as a pastime. However, direct of play@work linkages were few.

One of them was written by Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, co-authored with Christopher Vaughan. The book is called “Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul”.

The book starts with background on animals at play. First vivid example describes an incident where an encounter between polar bear and a husky did not end up tragically for the latter. Instead hungry polar bear was happy to be drawn into puppy-like play.

What follows is an interesting thought experiment that spans several pages. Play is considered to be one of the most important means of child and adult learning; one of the most important sources of creativity; playing together as a fundamental basis for bonding and teamwork. Numerous examples presented in the book demonstrate that our species has been produced to play throughout the adulthood.

Why on the earth do we consider that in order to be productive we need to be sombre and serious at work? Apparently this is an outdated view. There are several studies that demonstrate that playfulness at work is in fact increasing our productiveness.

Indeed – even joking sometimes helps in certain conditions as Lancaster professor David L. Collinson has found in his studies[1]. Side remark – this does not obviously mean that we ought to start joking and playing all day. Certain modesty should be exercised – thinking of some light-hearted solitaire addicts.

However, the most important statement of this about play@work comes from medical studies. These have identified that very serious workplaces are not necessarily more productive. But they certainly are much more depressive. So the opposite of play is not work, it’s depression.

Lots of books about play tend to take playfulness out. Brown is not one of them. His book is fun to read. My definite reading recommendation for anybody interested in how to incite some playfulness in your office or factory. If you are interested then I also welcome you to watch his inspiring video at Serious Play TED conference called “Play is more than fun”.

[1] Collinson (2002) Managing Humour. Journal of Management Studies 39:3, pp. 269-288.

LEGO SERIOUS PLAY Explained in Spanish

I would like to share with the community the last video recorded by a web TC Channel about the serious play by juego serio consulting. I hope you can enjoy the video in the original language.

All the best
Lucio

What are the rules of the Game?

On 14th April 2010, a number of future ex-Certified LEGO SERIOUS PLAY partners met with LEGO management and then amongst themselves to discuss the feasibility of creating a community. From LEGO’s side, it was made clear that LEGO would in future only refer, be it in person or on the web, to open communities of parties interested in LEGO SERIOUS PLAY.

Even prior to the April 14th meeting, some interested parties were already feeling that the community would have to establish the rules of the game, before it could function effectively and before any other decisions could be made.

Others felt that before deciding on the rules, the objectives of the community should be established.

Others again felt that we should just get out there and do business together and the objectives and rules would work themselves out.

If anyone reading this article is interested in contributing to the establishment of this community, please comment below…

160 Estonian visionary thinkers and opinion leaders used LEGO bricks to build country vision.

The Development Fund‘s FUTURES FORUM 3 “Globally Competitive, Locally Attractive Estonia in 2018″ took place on 6 May 2010 at 10-17 at the Chamber Hall of Theater “Estonia” This year’s Futures Forum was the kick-off for the wider discussion of Estonia’s mid-term future. The purpose of the debate is to reach a shared vision about the possible sources of economic growth for Estonia in rapidly-changing world.

The day was opened by the President of the Republic of Estonia – Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Thereafter a group of individuals from a think tank described 4 potential regional future scenarios. To get inspiration for creative vision-building the participants listened to a number of lectures. Eamonn Kelly (CEO emeritus of the Global Business Network and former chairman of Scottish Enterprise), Mikko Kosonen (President of the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra and former Strategy Director of Nokia) and scenarios guru Peter Schwartz

Marko Rillo explains shared vision building

During the second half of the day the participants received LEGO SERIOUS PLAY exploration bags to come up with their vision for country mid-term future for 2018. They were sitting in tables of 10, each lead by qualified instructor.

They had 3 minutes to build their individual models: “How do I see Estonia in 2018″. Thereafter each one of the participants described their models to the other members of their group. The groups spent an hour to come up with shared vision and identifying primary success factors. Finally a number of groups presented their understanding to the other participants. The results of visioning task are available at the Development Fund website.

Slideshow of the event
is available on Flickr

With the introduction of SERIOUS PLAY Open Source model – LEGO has somewhat changed its product portfolio and announced 4 product types that it is shipping worldwide for the SERIOUS PLAY applications. All are well familiar to facilitators. You may order the products via your selected facilitator or directly via Serious Play website.

Window Exploration Bag

Lego Window Exploration Bag - art.2000409

These small bags come in a box that holds a collection of 100. One bag per participant. It is useful either for short “teaser” workshops or for introductory tasks – for skills building or for warm up.

Each bag includes:

Starter Kit

Starter Kit - art. 2000414

Comes as one kit per participant. Can be used for warm up and some initial tasks for longer workshops or for problem solving tasks during well framed meetings.

Each kit includes:

• Selection of standard LEGO bricks combined with a few DUPLO elements.
• Selection of special elements such as wheels, tires, windows, trees, minifigure parts, sticks, globes and small base plates
• Imaginopedia for Core Process.

Identity and Landscape Kit

Identity and Landscape Kit - art. 2000415

One kit per group of 10-12 participants. Can be used for full 1-3 days of group workshop that is aimed at building shared understanding of a new strategy, a complex problem, new identity or to brainstorm for out-of-box creative ideas.

Each kit includes:

• Large special mix of LEGO bricks combined with DUPLO elements including animals.
• Extensive selection of special elements such as wheels, tires, windows, trees, minifigure parts, sticks, globes, spiral tubes, ladders, fences and spider webs.
• Large selection of base plates.
• 3 grey plastic sorting trays.

Connections Kit

Connection Kit - art. 2000413

One kit per group of 10-12 participants. Can be used for follow-up of the full workshop that is aimed at building complex relationships between different actors at a business landscape and explore how the system as a whole responds to changes in environment.

Each kit includes:

• Large selection of long LEGO bricks.
• Extensive selection of connecting elements such as spiral tubes, ladders, fences, bridges and strings.
• 10 identical bags containing bricks for the “pencil case” exercise.
• 3 light grey plastic sorting trays.

PS. Images have been taken from www.seriousplay.com website.

LEGO has announced today the following:

As of May 1st 2010 LEGO has decided to allow everyone – including facilitators outside of our previous partner network – to use LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®. LEGO will no longer be sustaining a network of licensed partners offering LEGO SERIOUS PLAY and as a result LEGO SERIOUS PLAY can be obtained through a wide community of facilitators using the method as part of their toolbox.

As a client looking for an experienced LEGO SERIOUS PLAY facilitator to run a workshop or as a professional facilitator or consultant looking for training in order to apply LEGO SERIOUS PLAY to your toolbox, we encourage you to search the internet for LEGO SERIOUS PLAY facilitators within your country.

Groups of facilitators are currently in the process of setting up online community platforms. You will be able to find links to those communities on this site when they are established.

A description of the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® core method will be offered as open source to all facilitators, who wish to benefit from using the method. The description is currently under development and will be made public on this site later this year.

According to Wikipedia …

Johan Roos and Bart Victor created the “serious play” concept and process in the mid-1990s as way to enable managers to describe, create and challenge their views of their business. Dr. Roos is now President of Copenhagen Business School and Dr. Bart Victor is Cal Turner Professor of Moral Leadership at Vanderbilt University but when they created serious play they were both professors at IMD in Switzerland. The conceptual foundation of serious play combines ideas from constructivism (Piaget 1951), its subsequent version constructionism (Harel and Papert 1991), complex adaptive system theory (Holland 1995) and autopoietic corporate epistemology (von Krogh and Roos 1994; 1995) applied to the context of management and organizations.

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