Lego in a corporate setting

Si_UKNZ

Has anyone any experience of using lego in a corporate setting for team building, training, or anything like that?

I have a favourite presentation which uses minifigs as a metaphor (must add a credit to @huw into my pres!), but Im wondering about other uses for lego in the corporate world.

Cam_n_Stu

I've never seen it used but have you already seen www.seriousplay.com and Googled the same?

cmrt1014

Ions ago, at a corporate course relating to how to work together better, as a team, one of the tasks involved us, workers, building a LEGO set, without seeing the instructions or the completed model, based on verbal directions from our manager. They could see the completed model in another room, but couldn't touch anything. Our team was the fastest, for two reasons: 1 - I had the exact model at home, and so was familiar with it (experience is always a good thing!) (it was a small set, can't say for sure which one at this point); and 2 - as our "manager" was viewing the completed model, we sorted our parts instead of just sitting around waiting for directions.

I thought it was a good task that we workers got to practice working together on something simple, yet complex; and our managers was able to see, almost immediately, how effective their directions were (or weren't).

I still remember this as being a fun part of the class (the remainder of which I'm sure I've completely forgotten!)

Model_Gal

Actually I coordinated a team building event with a company last year. They were a medical technology company. I got two of the basic creator sets, the ones with mostly common bricks and a couple minifigs. I made 18 "kits" with lots of bricks, 2 minifigs and a baseplate. Their "assignment" was to create a new technology as a team and then present it to the whole group. It was a great success and everyone had a great time.

There are a lot of applications for LEGO as team building events that can be customized to the business or setting that is needed. The great thing about LEGO is that it reminds everyone of their child hoods so even if they haven't played with bricks since they were kids, they end up having fun.

thewerewithal

Jonathan Bender discusses the use of Lego in the work place as a training / team building tool in his book: Lego a Love Story. I think Google uses Lego for these purposes. Model Gal - I think that is a great idea. Glad it went well for you.

prevere

I've worked with a company in California, Sierra Instruments, that used LEGOs for some high school / vo-ed programs. Pretty cool.

Halberd777

My wife is a Mary Kay director and she recently used my King's Carriage Ambush with a female lego some sort of illustration for two meetings. One for her team and it was so popular that she used the same one for another director over webcam.

Si_UKNZ

Serious play looks OK, but to be honest theres a lot of this kind of thing and not much about what they actually do ...

"LEGO SERIOUS PLAY builds on a REAL TIME process, which begins with the "right now". It draws in relevant parts of the past and integrates this with the future hopes, aspirations and fears of everyone in the room. It is brought to the process to find out what can and should be done today. Being better at "now" results in being better prepared for challenges and opportunities in the future."

.... blah blah waffle waffle, I still dont know what it actually _is_!

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This is quite interesting though ..

"As of May 1st 2010 LEGO has decided to allow everyone - including facilitators outside of our previous partner network - to use LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®."


"You can now donwload an Open Source document outlining the basic guiding principles of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and its philosophy....... The Open Source document aims to empower and inspire people to become familliar with the LSP method as well as open up the experience to people who previously couldnt be a part of it.

By sharing the method of LSP we hope it will illustrate the "power of thinking through your fingers" enabling individuals to unleash insight, inspiration and imagination, in a practical and direct way. The common language - the bricks - makes everyone equal and allows all opinions and aspects to be heard. The bricks allow people to communicate thoughts and ideas in place of traditional communication methods that can be too restrictive."

This sounds like something we should all be aware of!
It's here ...
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5032997/LEGO Serious Play OS/LEGO®_SERIOUS_PLAY_OpenSource.pdf

Im just reading it now ...

monkey_roo

I used two identical Pirate sets (6242) in an IT technical meeting last year. Split the room into two teams each with three sub-teams of two and gave the all the same breif, that they were each building a section of a larger model and what that section was, prison, guard tower etc. One team got to use the instructions the other didn't. At the end we pulled each section together and tried to create the larger model. Obviously one team was able to do this the other wasn't. The idea was to try to show a group of developers what happens when they build internal company systems without seeing the bigger picture or understand what or how the other systems interact. A bit contrived but a lot of fun and two lucky chaps got to keep all the Lego at the end of the day.