Serious Play Forum

[Jon Trevor]

Next question :-)

How do people document the outcomes of a LSP facilitation? Photos and labels? Flipcharts? Notes? Video? How do you present your findings and outcomes to the commissioners of the workshop?

[Joyce Miller]

Hi Jon, “where” and “what” did you learn about LEGO Serious Play (LSP)?

I know people from the Agile community who think that getting out a bag of LEGO bricks is an LSP workshop. I know people in top-ranked business schools who think the same thing (I work with one of them). But it isn’t.

The process is extremely powerful when applied correctly,. When used partially, incorrectly, or inappropriately, the result can be disastrous and reflects badly on the LSP brand and our own community of practitioners.

Before LSP training was available starting in 2001, a facilitator was shocked to see her client jump out the window during the initial part of a session. Fortunately, they were on the ground floor.

In addition to answering the basic questions that you are posing, if you want to understand how to use the LEGO Serious Play methodology, I would strongly encourage you to contact one of the certified LSP trainers (e.g. Per Kristiansen and Robert Rasmussen in Denmark (English, Danish), Marie Dupont in France (French), Lucio Margulis in Argentina (Spanish), Jacquie Lloyd Smith in Canada (English), Denise Myerson in Australia (English). The topic of documentation is well-covered within a training as is how to use LSP with individuals and groups to achieve powerful results.

The Serious Play Pro community welcomes all those interested in the LSP methodology and by extension, other aspects related to LEGO and what you might call “gamification”. We are currently having some internal discussions about quality management and preserving the LSP brand in the marketplace. There is some concern that people are using the term LEGO Serious Play without understanding its underlying principles and precepts. The “open source” brochure is a good starting point. But as LSP is a facilitated methodology, an LSP session is, by definition, a facilitated process. Training in the methodology can help you to understand how it functions, the needed skills building activities and purposes, and roadmapping to achieve various outcomes.

Best regards, Joyce (in Switzerland)

[Jon Trevor]

Thanks for the reply Joyce. I of course plan to attend an LSP training workshop, but there doesn’t appear to be anything on the calendar I can get to for at least a year. Meanwhile, I am hoping to use the goodwill of this forum to expand my knowledge.

Jon

[Marko Rillo]

Jon,

Indeed – as Joyce has said: all these questions are thoroughly dealt with at LSP facilitator training sessions. However, if you are interested in this subject in more detail then I would suggest you to read Per’s and Robert’s book. In chapter 4 they talk about the method in detail, incl references to documentation. Also on pp. 138-140 there are some further hints on the rules of communicating the outcome:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1118832450/?tag=seriousplay-20

In practice – of course it all depends on the particular facilitation session. In most cases the biggest value of facilitation with the LSP methodology relies in the process itself. However, in general – according to the LSP best practice the results of the sessions should be usually thoroughly documented with video and photo aids, and if necessary, assisted with additional textual transcript of the stories that are being told during application technique 6 (strategizing emergence and decisions) and/or the meta-story that is being created during application technique 7 (extracting simple guiding principles).

A couple of additional ideas here:

Lego Serious Play Photo Transcripts

Hope it helps!

[Per Kristiansen]

Jon,
Little to add to the rich answers from Joyce and Marko, only want to share that I have found it important to keep the documentation as close to their language as possible, i.e. really use the metaphors and keep them alive. This helps carry the result into the workplace afterwards
Good luck
Per

[Author]

Posts