SAP Fiori Practitioners Forum – LEGO Serious Play Introduction from Bluestonex

SAP Fiori Practitioners Forum Overview

CEO of Bluestonex- Dan Barton, takes the Fiori Practitioners Forum through the concept of LEGO Serious Play and how it can help businesses understand their processing needs.

Discover what Serious LEGO Play is, the five steps involved in its methodology and more as we take questions from the Forum.

See more from the Fiori Practitioners Forum here

What is LEGO Serious Play?

At its heart, LEGO Serious Play is the belief that everyone in the room can contribute to the discussion, decisions and solving organisational issues, no matter their role or experience. It’s an innovative and experimental process designed to enhance innovation and business performance

As well as solving organisational issues, the second aim of LSP is for participants to leave with skills to communicate more effectively, to engage their imagination more readily. This leaves participants with increased confidence and commitment.

In LEGO Serious Play, there are rules:

·      There is no one right answer

·      Everyone has an equal voice

·      The answer is in the system

·      People are allowed to enquire and ask questions but never negative ones.

·      Listen with your eyes

How does LEGO Serious Play work?

Unlike many other problem-solving methodologies, LEGO Serious Play can be run face-2-face or remotely. Sessions can range from 2 hours to 8-hour workshops.

The LEGO elements work as a catalyst by using buildings as metaphors. These trigger processes that were previously unthought of.

 

There are three steps in LEGO Serious Play:

1.      The Foundation

2.     The Content

3.     The Landscape

4.     System

5.     Planning

The Foundation consists of Introducing the method and warming up with a skill-building exercise to break the ice and warm up the imagination.

The Content is all about building individual models around the content of the Workshop (the problems your organisation is facing.) This often means building visual metaphors of organisational issues. These models are then shared with the group to discuss.

The landscape stage involves coming together around a large table (normally) and sharing the models as a group. From here, participants build external and internal agents and work out where these agents need to be placed in order to have the most impact.

In the system stage, you build connections between the agents and connections between the models and agents on a wider scale. This represents the best way to build a system and from there, a visual representation of the issue is formed.

The final step is planning. Here, key conclusions are identified and from here concrete plans or strategies can be built to form a solution

 

When was LEGO SERIOUS PLAY created?

The LEGO Serious Play methodology was created in 1996 by the LEGO group themselves. It was developed with the aim of unlocking untapped innovation within the company. The thought was, if children use LEGO to build their dreams, adult can use it to build a strategic vision. This proved effective to improve their supply chain and has helped turn them into the giant organisation we all know.

Who uses LEGO SERIOUS PLAY?

The beauty of LEGO Serious Play is that it is relevant across a business environment. From CEOs to technical assistants and graduates, every person in an organisation can get something out of LSP. One of the underpinning rules of LSP is that everyone’s voice is equal, so LSP can be used by all levels of an organisation.

Since it is primarily used to unlock new ways of thinking and solve organisational problems, it’s used by organisations that have trouble conveying an issue and do not have need to unlock an alternative way to look at a problem.

The Value of LEGO Serious Play

  • LEGO Serious Play can help simplify by creating an overview of what is chaotic and complex
  • It can help facilitate changes and develop a shared understanding and acceptance of the changes
  • Identify new and creative solitons to various challenges
  • Helps explore/understand the consequences of possible future actions.
  • Act as a catalyst for dialogue
  • Collects knowledge and information in a visual way
  • Implements and secures concepts and plans
  • Creates shared goals and direction based on culture and identity

Playing promotes creativity and that enhances collaboration and learning. When playing we are free to take risks. Imagine the unthinkable and taking on a vast number of roles.

Playing enables us to enter the ‘flow’. The flow is the place where individuals and teams are completely committed to and enjoy the process. This then becomes an optimal place for cognitive and emotional involvement.

When adults play using this method, social ties, emotional expressions, cognitive development and constructive competition are added to the mix.

The construct of using LEGO bricks promotes a greater outcome of the play and go deeper into stories that really matter and enrich the work life of everyone involved in the process.

Design thinking and LEGO Serious Play

Design thinking refers to another methodology around looking at the way things are used to solve a problem. LEGO Serious Play plays an important role in the design thinking process. It fits in between empathise/ scope and defining the issues. It yields very useful results for identifying issues from which more accurate.

Applying LSP to a design thinking process will unlock alternative ways to approach an issue but more importantly, as it helps people get to the crux of an issue clearly and visually, they can get to the right solution quicker.

LEGO Serious Play for Fiori

When building Fiori applications, to ensure the UX is the best it can be most fall back into the design thinking methodology- which is absolutely the right way to go. LEGO Serious Play fits into this by unlocking the part of the brain which gets people thinking and looking at an issue from another angle. Once in this position, alternative ideas come to light which can often improve UX beyond the levels it already would be. It’s an additional step that enhances design thinking and enables participants to identify a problem in a deeper and faster way which can then build upon the solutions to produce the best applications for customers.

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