Lab4Living using Lego Serious Play methodology to define identity, purpose and strategy

Matt Dexter, Research Associate with Lab4Living, has been trained and certified in the Lego Serious Play methodology as an LSP facilitator. We are now beginning a journey to exploration to see how this methodology can be adapted and evolved to enhance and support innovation in the healthcare field; service innovation and device/technology innovation.

This team is a Community Support team in South Yorkshire who are going through a transitional phase and have an opportunity to clarify, re-define or re-affirm their identity and purpose – and then consider how they might strategically set about optimally achieving their purpose. They were our guinea pigs, allowing us to apply the methodology in the first real field application of this. Feedback from the team was very positive and has led to more enquires.

A big part of the Lab4Living approach is to use creative practices and creative practitioners to bring diverse (but relevant) people together and to enable them to think differently – from this arises new ways of thinking and subsequently new ways of doing.

The Lego Serious Play methodology uses Lego as a metaphorical language to build physical interpretations of complex concepts and then to negotiate shared understanding. The participants pour meaning into the things they build and construct – so what they build is not as important as the meaning they give it. Lego simple provides a familiar and highly articulate physical language.

What this demonstrates again is that using a physical language; a physical language that has to be made and constructed, can be a powerful vehicle for creating shared understanding in complex spaces.