• We are looking for new contributors to the Serious Play Pro website. If you want then you can just start or join a discussion easily on our community forum website immediately after registration. 

    We would also be happy to publish the materials that our readers would find interesting on the blog front page. For example:

    Interesting blog posts about play, playfulness, facilitation,
    Case studies – stories, videos or photos of your facilitation events,
    Reviews about books on facilitation and playful techniques,
    Research review posts – covering interesting new avenues that has been studied recently.

    We hope that this could bring some new debates to our growing community and provide visibility to new and active bloggers. Just send a message to Marko.

  • Serious Play Pro Website Statistics Serious Play Pro Website Statistics – Number of Annual Visitors July 2013-July 2014Since the introduction of LSP Open Source we are glad to witness that the number of facilitators has grown steadily. The Serious Play Pro community was established just four years ago and today we are a true community which covers all the corners of the globe.

    It is fun to observe that the coverage of the visitors (the table below) is really almost global. See the annual statistics table of the different countries and the annual number of unique visits from that country. All the regions are well represented among the people interested in the Lego Serious Play methodology.

    In average, 66.1 unique visitors come to our site every day nowadays (up from 44.1 visitors/day in 2013 and 35.4 visitors/day in 2012). Given that 2/3 of those visitors are new visitors, it means that any post published are likely read in a month by 2000 different people.

    #
    Country
    Visitors

    1
    United States
    5,739

    2
    Spain
    2,257

    3
    Netherlands
    2,168

    4
    United Kingdom
    2,035

    5
    Germany
    1,907

    6
    Mexico
    1,843

    7
    Canada
    1,369

    8
    Estonia
    1,326

    9
    Colombia
    1,210

    10
    France
    1,177

    11
    Denmark
    1,161

    12
    Australia
    852

    13
    Singapore
    752

    14
    Chile
    750

    15
    Italy
    648

    16
    Turkey
    572

    17
    South Korea
    569

    18
    Belgium
    563

    19
    Switzerland
    507

    20
    Brazil
    481

    21
    Japan
    462

    22
    Peru
    414

    23
    Russia
    369

    24
    South Africa
    335

    25
    India
    321

    26
    Argentina
    313

    27
    China
    307

    28
    Malaysia
    294

    29
    Hong Kong
    273

    30
    Sweden
    238

    31
    Ecuador
    229

    32
    Philippines
    228

    33
    Thailand
    217

    34
    Venezuela
    207

    35
    Austria
    201

    36
    Finland
    196

    37
    Portugal
    188

    38
    Poland
    183

    39
    Indonesia
    176

    40
    New Zealand
    169

    41
    Taiwan
    168

    42
    Greece
    143

    43
    Israel
    135

    44
    Ireland
    127

    45
    Norway
    124

    46
    Costa Rica
    112

    47
    United Arab Emirates
    106

    48
    Czech Republic
    93

    49
    Slovenia
    92

    50
    Romania
    89

    51
    Hungary
    88

    52
    Kosovo
    88

    53
    Lithuania
    87

    54
    Saudi Arabia
    83

    55
    Guatemala
    80

    56
    Bolivia
    76

    57
    Egypt
    68

    58
    Panama
    65

    59
    Ukraine
    51

    60
    Slovakia
    44

    61
    Croatia
    42

    62
    Vietnam
    42

    63
    Kazakhstan
    40

    64
    Serbia
    34

    65
    Cyprus
    30

    66
    Iran
    28

    67
    Jordan
    28

    68
    Pakistan
    26

    69
    Puerto Rico
    25

    70
    Luxembourg
    21

    71
    Bulgaria
    20

    72
    Uruguay
    20

    73
    Latvia
    19

    74
    Qatar
    19

    75
    Belarus
    15

    76
    Dominican Republic
    15

    77
    Kenya
    15

    78
    Macedonia (FYROM)
    13

    79
    El Salvador
    13

    80
    Lebanon
    12

    81
    Trinidad and Tobago
    12

    82
    Paraguay
    10

    83
    Bahrain
    9

    84
    Honduras
    9

    85
    Mauritius
    9

    86
    Nigeria
    9

    87
    Tunisia
    9

    88
    Morocco
    8

    89
    Macau
    8

    90
    Albania
    7

    91
    Cote d’Ivoire
    7

    92
    Ghana
    7

    93
    Jamaica
    7

    94
    Malta
    7

    95
    Nicaragua
    7

    96
    Iceland
    6

    97
    Kuwait
    6

    98
    Sri Lanka
    5

    99
    Moldova
    5

  • Thumbnail

    I have today revised the layout of the community website to make it better readable by mobile devices. Please leave your comments on any issues that you notice on the website functionality.

  • Laura Seargeant Richardson has published an inspiring video about how the rules of the play can be modified and left to the player’s own devices to achieve more proactive results. Something to also contemplate

  • During recent days, a couple of new Slideshares have been created on Lego Serious Play methodology. The first one is created by the Assistant Professor Arindam Basu of University of Canterbury at Christchurch, New Zealand. In his presentation he combines design thinking with Lego Serious Play approach and demonstrates how the combination can be used in order to achieve flow in solution finding process.

    Another Slideshare is in French language. Published by a SlideShare user “Chinkie75” – it shows some photos of tower and bridge building exercise and a number of metaphors as well.

  • Thumbnail
    The following article was published on the website of
    Independent Free Press Canada.

    Chances are you grew up with LEGO. Perhaps it was your favourite toy, or a building tool that invoked your imagination to

  • Patrizia and Per,

    Thanks to both of you for a great discussion. It might be indeed a good idea to gather in September and even spend some time on definition building. However, if we are unable to define the LSP for our purpose more precisely then I would say that there is nothing wrong with that either. If we are not too strict in our expression…[Read more]

    • Hi Mark,

      sorry for the late reply!
      I would make a distinction between LSP core and its derivative applications. Legoviews (which I have been doing in several context different from the initial experiments in Palestine) in NOT LSP, it’s a derivation as it lacks many elements of a workshop.

      Perhaps we don’t need a definition, but perhaps defining…[Read more]

  • Thumbnail
    After the post where the Lego Serious Play Starter Kit (art.no. 2000414) was unpacked, recently another video has been uploaded to YouTube where a Dutch facilitator Rick Lindeman demonstrates the contents of the

  • hi Patrizia

    Indeed

    Could perhaps also be topic for a building exercise at a break out session at the LSP days later this year…

    A presto
    Per

  • hi Patrizia
    Your question is far from stupid, however it may have two sides to it:

    Do you mean what defines something as LEGO SERIOUS PLAY – in that case we would often turn to the core process. If one does not adhere to the core process, then it is not LSP

    Do you mean defining what it does or is, ie a method etc – in this case we often talk…[Read more]

  • Dotti Toellner and Cori Moore Video on Lego Serious Play Facilitation workshop at Lift 2014 conference. They wrote about the event the following.

    What happened at Lift14: Well, we sure had some serious fun – it’s amazing what you can do with such energetic and inspiring participants! The fully booked session kicked off with some skill building exercises, teaching our lively liftonians how to (literally) build metaphors, express abstract ideas with 3D models and collaborate through storymaking. Then the real work started as we addressed the question: “What does it take to be a change agent”. (We couldn’t believe how committed these guys were – talk about “flow moments”.) Putting their new skills into action, our lifters experienced rapid action prototyping and shared sense making as they probed and encouraged their fellow team members, drawing out meaning with plenty cheers and laughter!

    They also reflected upon their experience at their blog and at their company website.

    Doerte ‘Dotti’ Toellner is co-founder and managing director of Point-Blank International. In nearly two decades as a qualitative researcher, design thinker and change agent she has founded two companies and travelled the world on the behalf of ‘her’ brands. Catching sparks and crafting new ways of looking, thinking & doing keeps her inspired and passionate – in research, design, innovation & life in general. Make sure you set aside some time to chat with her about her hobby horses, such as 5 senses research, haptic think and the role of magic in the qualitative approach!

    Cori Moore is stationed at Point-Blank’s idea workbench and communication hub, better known as Spark & Craft. A multitasking octopus, she devotes her time to running workshops, attending conferences and events, writing blogs & articles, tweeting, occasionally doodling and bringing new sparks of inspiration & people into the company. A cultural sponge, with a passion for trying new things, her bag of tricks incorporates her experience in the diverse fields of research, communication, event management & mixology – she can make a mean cocktail if you ask her nicely.

  • The following post on how Lego Serious Play is not just a game was written by the Liquid Agency Chief Creative Officer  Alfredo Muccino

    Lego Serious Play is a hands-on, experiential process designed to

  • ThumbnailAn interesting post from Get West London about the use of Lego Serious Play in therapy

    A Harefield woman is among a new breed of therapists encouraging grown men and women to stop working and start playing –

  • I found this 2 year old post about Lego Serious Play by Agile Partnership consultant Ellen Grove from her blog. There is also a great team facilitation case study that includes an interesting responsibility game

  • LEGO Serious Play Transcript by Massimo Mercuri LEGO Serious Play Transcript by Massimo Mercuri

    Lego Serious Play facilitator and our community member Massimo Mercuri has published an interesting post on LSP Facebook group showing how he has transcribed the models that they have built. It is an interesting concept and can add useful perspective to the client. Probably a good idea to report back upon the LSP session. Look at the two pictures closely. Have you done something similar – what do you think of his approach?

    LEGO Serious Play Transcript by Massimo Mercuri LEGO Serious Play Transcript by Massimo Mercuri

  • Schoolkids playing with legos.  From: fastcoexist.com Schoolkids playing with legos. From: fastcoexist.com

    Fast Co Exist has published this article about the linkages between Lego and creativity.

    By: Jessica Leber

    Creativity is in decline around the world. But a new school built by the toy block company that focuses on play might unlock the secret to a solution.

    If successful companies and societies of this next century are defined by their ability to innovate–a trope repeated constantly in business seminars, surveys, and speeches–then the U.S. may be headed for a rough time: On average, Americans’ ability to think creatively has declined.

    This trend has been called “the creativity crisis,” and was defined by a major study in 2011. Researchers looked at a common measure of creativity in 300,000 kids and adults over time and found that, unlike IQ scores, creativity had been declining since 1990. The effect was most marked in elementary-school-age kids.

    Why exactly creativity measures are declining is still anyone’s guess, although evidence and intuition points to the growing emphasis on testing in education as a factor. Kids are taught to learn by understanding “the one right answer” they need to find, and what they need to do to find it. (On tests of how kids do at brainstorming ideas, 98% of three-year-olds register as “creative geniuses.” By the time they are 25? Only 2%).

    “There’s an immense and growing pressure to be able to standardize approaches in the school to ensure quality. And this is an interesting contradiction, because standardization never leads to quality when we talk about learning. We’re not producing products. We’re trying to educate children,” says Randa Grob-Zakhary, CEO of the Lego Foundation.

    The foundation, endowed by the Lego Group, is now focused on revamping education systems to try to shift this dynamic at all ages–mainly by incorporating structured, hands-on “play” that fosters creative thinking. “A lot of work is focused on how can we better teach and more quickly teach reading and math–literacy and numeracy,” she says, speaking with Co.Exist at the United Nations’ Global Compact summit in New York City last month. “There’s still a very big gap in defining how can we better equip our children with creative and critical thinking skills to equip them to face tomorrow’s challenges.”

    Last month, the Lego Foundation opened its own international school in Billund, near the company’s headquarters in Denmark, where the foundation will attempt to rigorously test and measure some of these ideas by incorporating “hands-on learning” into the curriculum wherever possible–with Lego bricks, but also with other toys, building materials and even robotics technologies. The school will build on the work of the foundation’s existing projects around the world. One, in South Africa, is where today 40,000 kids in grades K to 12 at 25 schools are working with a curriculum that includes play. Anecdotal evidence from this project shows that tests scores have gone up and teacher turnover has been “transformed,” says Grob-Zakhary, though no rigorous studies have been done.

    She envisions a key role for the foundation in building a network that moves educational and psychological research on the topic of play and creativity out of academic journals and into the hands of teachers and policymakers. She is also looking to attract buy-in from the business world, which often invests in workforce training in college programs but rarely focuses on early childhood.

    She believes that businesses need to start taking a longer-term view. “If we don’t start in those first five years, we have much less possibility to create that workforce we need. And yet very few businesses who would benefit from that kind of agility and adaptiveness built in the early years actually invest in it. It’s a really significant issue.”

  • Sjra Puts has produced an exciting action trailer about Lego Serious Play in progress. Enjoy! :-)

  • 31Volts is a young and experienced service design agency based in the Netherlands who work in the overlap of business and creativity. They have recently posted a video of one of their Lego Serious Play sessions to Vimeo

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    Students’ Union of the University of the Arts London published a short case on Managing Stuckness with Lego Serious Play

    So, apparently Lego Serious Play (LSP) is an actual thing. I signed up to this

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