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Lab4Living staff attended a Lego® Serious Play® training course last month, exploring its potential to enhance facilitation in research.
Led by Sean Blair, founder of SERIOUSWORK, a business providing professional facilitator training, the four-day intensive course taught participants the Lego® Serious Play® method, as well as general facilitation methods.
Created by Robert Rasmussen, Managing Director of Rasmussen Consulting and Chief Facilitator of the method, Lego® Serious Play® is a systematic facilitation method that uses Lego® bricks to maximise the potential of every participant in a group discussion.
Rachael Hughson-Gill and Ursula Ankeny, two Lab4Living staff and doctoral candidates attended the course in person on 19th November 2024.
“It is all about using Lego® as a facilitation method and workshops for vision building, strategy setting and digging down deeper into a topic, and using Lego® as a way to externalize what you’re saying,” said Ursula.
“It’s been shown to help facilitate difficult conversations because a physical model on the table can’t be moved, and no voices can be suppressed in a way that it can in a general conversation.”
“I thought it was amazing,” said Rachael.
“I felt I learnt so much not just about Lego® Serious Play® but facilitation as a whole. “It’s another skill to learn, which is really really helpful. It [the training ] not only helped understand Lego® Serious Play® but also how we communicate through things and collaboratively generate ideas” Rachael added.
“Building a model is kind of like thinking with your hands, and as you talk through your model you find yourself saying things which initially didn’t come very easily to you before and you discover deeper insights,” Ursula adds.
“We got a chance to be facilitators and practice what we’d learned too, which was very hands on and useful.”
“We got to practice with and learn from other participants also, which I think was invaluable,” said Rachael.
“I thought Sean Blair was really great as a trainer. It was quite inspiring how he took the method and continues to evolve it.”
Ursula Ankeny, doctoral candidate
Though typically used in business settings to support problem-solving and boosting performance, both Ursula and Rachel see the validity of the method in research.
“We were quite interested to see it applied in a research context because it’s quite different. Within research you’ve got different stakeholders who don’t know each other, who all are not part of the same company and have difficult topics. Using Lego® enables these different groups to come together and allow all voices to be heard.”
“I’ve wanted to learn [the method] for two years because it’s always seemed like a useful technique we can use; not to use in everything and sometimes you should use other creative approaches, but I think it’s useful to have in your toolbox of options,” said Ursula.
“I think it’s quite useful in the beginning of a project, it’s kind of like scaffolding and understanding things and it’s a way of coming up with ideas.”
Ursula, who’d seen the method used by her colleagues prior to the course, plans to use the method in her own research in using co-design technology to support the invisible aspects of paediatric long-term condition management.
“As part of this training I came up with a workshop plan to work with children with cerebral palsy, and their parents, teachers and healthcare professionals. I want to run that workshop as part of my PhD, so I’ll be hoping to do that in April or May [next year].”
Ursula explains that using Lego® Serious Play® in research involving children can be extremely helpful, especially with difficult and painful topics like paediatric conditions.
“It sets an equal platform,” she said. “Children will be in their element when given Lego®, and particularly in workshops in pediatric conditions, it helps level up the child since it takes away the power hierarchy. It helps their voice to be emphasised.
“It’s quite a difficult topic to discuss too, so using Lego® as a method to externalise it enables conversations.”
Even though it’s scientifically backed, Ursula admits that there are cynics to the method.
“I think the first reaction [to the method] is ‘why are you asking me to play with toys’, which I can see why they might say that. But when you run them through different exercises and they see the first wave of how it works, they quickly come on board.”
“It’s more that something that’s just fun to play with, it’s a method.”