LSP facilitator Guy Winterbotham and I were on point to do a one hour demo of LSP at the Innovate Virginia conference on March 25th. We had exactly one hour!
We reviewed and revamped our agenda to meet the hard stop of the hour. Deciding what we wanted to get across was the key.
Our goals for the session were simple enough, show them how LSP helps:
- Get 100% participation
- Ensure every voice is heard
- Confirm that the hands do know more than the brain
- Reveal that story telling and creativity go hand in hand
- Understand that though everyone has the same instructions, bricks -each model is different yet still “right”
We stuck to the plan for the intro, and technical sections but keep it crisp for the timing. Early on Guy and I split a box of the exploration kits so we had plenty of bricks for the 50 people we were expecting. We mapped our timing very carefully for the planned group. We expected 10 tables of 5 and figured the groups working in parallel would allow us around 3 minutes for sharing. The night before the event I went to look at the room (I always do that when possible) and discovered we now had 5 tables of 10. So it was back to the drawing board to revamp the timings.
Taking a page out of a number of the stories from other sessions posted here, we had them build from instructions (make a moose), they then added 5 extra bricks to modify the moose into a new creature. With 30 seconds each, we gave them a subject to use in describing their creature. “My creature represents- My Home, Agile, Innovate VA, a great meeting, a dream smartphone app,my manager, my car, my best friend – because…
In addition to the 100% participation aspect of LSP, we wanted them to see just how much creativity they all had in them. It was an eye-opener for some, and a lot of fun for all.
We moved on to the next part which was a use of “The Promotion” to further the creativity discovery.
We met our goals, had loads of hard fun, received glowing feedback and “graduated a class new LSP believers. Guy and I refined the plan to improve for the next demo. A win for all!
Next week we will be collaborating again in Washington DC for a workshop I found through the facilitator network. Its a great resource!
Looking forward to reporting on that one.
Become a LEGO Serious Play facilitator - check one of the upcoming training events!
We had a lot of fun with this one. It was a packed session that was still filling up after we started. Having two of us allowed Joe to keep to the schedule while I was able to lead late comers to open chairs and catch them up.
After the first few exercises I found the folks who were willing to act as facilitators sort of allowed the tables to self organize. We used visual timers on the projector which allowed Joe and I to remain in sync as we roamed around.