On the second day of the Agile Games 2011 conference, Jacquie Lloyd Smith will deliver a keynote describing how StrategicPlay™ using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY™ methodology can unleash group creativity and create better ideas that stick!
As kids, we used colorful snap-together LEGO® blocks to unleash our creativity by building dinosaurs, airplanes, even complete fantasylands. Now some large organizations across North America, Europe and around the world are using LEGO® bricks to enhance organizational creativity and performance.
But you won’t just watch and listen – during this keynote, you will get to participate in StrategicPlay™ with LEGO®SERIOUS PLAY™ methodology firsthand! You will experience how the hands-on approach improves team and group performance. Results gained from using this tool are in most cases dramatically different than those created in the usual brainstorming processes. In the Strategicplay room, people ‘do, see, and hear’ as they engage whole brain learning through this 3D process.
In other sessions, skilled StrategicPlay™ facilitators’ help clients build models that act as metaphors for their organization's strengths, weaknesses, and overall challenges. For example, employees might use the blocks to model the product that is planned for a release or a team may put together an artifact to represent their completed iteration – and then use the artifact as a conversation enabler in their retrospective.
The methodology is based on extensive research in the fields of business, education, and psychology. According to Ms. Lloyd Smith, StrategicPlay™ and the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY™ methodology are based on the concept of "hand knowledge." She points to research showing that the hands are connected to 70 to 80 percent of people's brain cells. "By thinking and building with their hands, participants can explore connections and relationships."
Engagement and lack of stakeholder buy-in are often cited as the two biggest blocks to problem solving and the development of innovation in organizations today. In StrategicPlay™, the very people who are experiencing the challenges help to conduct the analysis within the business environment, explore and test options, and become part of the solution. And all this happens within a safe play space before spending money or resources in the market. When people feel they have a voice at the table, it is amazing how quickly and enthusiastically they will help to implement new ideas to ensure success.
LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this site.
Want to learn more about StrategicPlay™?
Read more on StrategicPlay™ or go to Lloyd Smith Solutions at http://www.lloydsmith.com.
Fun Facts about LEGO®:
- The name LEGO® comes from combining the Danish words "leg godt," meaning "play well." The founder, ole Kirk Kristiansen, hit upon the LEGO® name in 1934 quite unaware that another meaning of the word in Latin is “i put together”.
- The world's children spend 5 billion hours a year playing with LEGO® bricks.
- On average, every person on earth owns 70 LEGO® bricks.
- First made of wood that stacked together, LEGO® unveiled its first plastic bricks in 1949. The now classic LEGO® brick with its interlocking system was launched in 1958. The innovative products caught on in Europe first before spreading to the United States in the mid-1970s, where LEGO® was later named toy of the century by Fortune magazine.
