Lego Serious Play
Why & When
Lego can be a tool in a design thinking approch to prototype research ideas, haptically test setups and explore team settings and interactions. Originating in management, Lego serious play can be used in any sort of research setting, and is suitable for disciplinary design settings yet particularly helpful in transdisciplinary research modes. The strength of Lego serious play lies in group settings, where Lego can serve as a boundary object to allow team members to interact, allowing for a reflexive interaction. Lego is playful, many remember it from childhood, and it can trigger people to challenge their underlying assumptions. Through the haptic interaction are people enabled to interact more than if they would be just talking. The structure of Lego can help to structure the research. Lego can be this used as a catalyst for a team to develop research together.
Goal(s)
Lego serious play can be seen more as a way and not a goal. The goal can be bluntly put to 1) enable people to brainstorm in a smaller (3-15) group setting about research 2) integrate knowledge in a room in a non-hierarchical and enabling space 3) create research designs, workshop settings or the architecture of larger research projects.
The goal to this end is not so much the final Lego model, but more the way that leads to it.
Getting started
First of all, you need some Lego. Personally, I think the Lego serious play sets are not really necessary. Instead, any collection of Lego will do, as long as you do not have a Lego expert who will be missing this specific piece from his childhood. Find a large table or a clean ground space (blanket?) where everybody can sit comfortably for a long time. Put the Lego in the center, and make it clear, that everybody can and should be equally engaged. Ideally, there is a moderator who only intervenes in times of crisis or may engage people by asking specific questions. The process is still often led by hierarchies, yet this should ideally be avoided. Here I present three approach show I used Lego in the past in research settings. The first example shows how Lego can be used in a Team setting, for instance in management. A good starting point aims at three steps (following Kristiansen and Rasmussen 2014): 1) Get the knowledge from the room. Everybody should contribute their perspective, along other to understand their knowledge and perspective. 2) Construct a system. Try to bring the different parts of the knowledge together, thus people will jointly construct a model of the system, showing what is relevant and where connections and interactions are. 3) Linking the system and the individual. By trying to create a connection between the individual perspective and the system a new team hierarchy as well a a reflection of the role of individuals in the team or system can be created. The original Lego play approach focusses on business setting, where hierarchical management structures, habitual thinking and rigid systems often prevent change. lego play has proven valuable to transform such systems in a playful way. It serves both as a prototyping tool as well as a reflexive setting, allowing for system change and the empowerment of the individual.
The second example builds on the creation of a research design for a larger project. Large research projects often contain several PhD students, which within most empirical research -as an example- write at least three scientific papers. Hence a project with three PhD students creates in a utilitarian calculation knowledge in the form of nine papers. Of course will other forms of knowledge also be created, but this is at Leuphana in the Faculty of Sustainability what students have to deliver to be able to hand in their dissertation. I typically build two models in such a setting. One model for the PhDs, where each color represents one PhD student. There, link can be created between different papers of the PhDs, visualising where interaction are, and how the larger project may make sense. I would consider a project where you have three stacks of bricks that are completely unconnected a failure. There should be a justification and logic on why these PhDs are together in a larger project. The second model I often create differentiates between data, analysis and interpretation, showing a methodological differentiation. This is helpful if certain data feedbacks into later papers, or if two papers use the same analysis, but with different data. This can help to identify synergies in the project. Creating such models of projects can especially be also good at the beginning of a project to create a joined recognition of the different milestones -or Lego bricks- of the project.
The third example is for planing one specific sampling within a research project. Making stakeholder mapping can be aided by Lego figures, and out of such a stakeholder system several bricks can be located to show how many interviews are conducted, and where. These bricks can then be combined, and the interview campaign can be logistically planned. This can also be amended by a prototyping of the analysis, checking whether the sample number is large enough and if the knowledge saturates are a specific point. The lego bricks can thus also represent units of knowledge, that can be integrated into a three dimensional plots during the interview campaign to visualise not only the process, but also the progress and the information that was already gathered.
Lego can be a serious boundary object within research settings, and can help to reflect within team, and integrate the knowledge and perspectives in the team. The possibilities of the Lego serious play approach are endless, and it is up to the team members how Lego is being utilised. Try it out!
