What was the procedure? How many participants were there?

All students in the Marketing Instruments module of the Mechanical Engineering module and the Marketing Specialisation module of the Civil Engineering module took part in my LEGO® Serious Play® event. A total of 60 participants were divided into groups of around 12 people, each of whom had around three hours over two weeks in five timeslots to work on their marketing project with the help of LEGO® Serious Play®. The 12 participants were divided into subgroups of 3 to 4 people according to their marketing projects.

In a first step, each participant built a tower as a warm-up to train their technical skills and metaphorical work in the form of storytelling. In a second step, an individual response was built to the pre-defined question relating to the marketing project.

Finally, in a third step, partial aspects were selected from the various individual solutions and integrated into a joint model. All partial results of the workshop were documented by the individual groups with video and photos.

What were the results? What did the participants say about the LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) method?

The results and, in particular, the problem-solving process were impressive. All participants played an active role in shaping the process; there was no opportunity to sit back and let the other team members get on with it. This created a great group dynamic. The different approaches were heard and integrated, which significantly improved problem solving. The playful approach and relaxed atmosphere created a team-building experience, which was received with enthusiasm by the participants, especially after a few semesters of online teaching due to the pandemic.

The method is perceived by students as a great opportunity for team building and also for working on the content of a problem solution. Immediately after the workshop, most groups used the ‘flow’ to continue working on their project.

How do I rate the use of LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) in teaching? Where has it helped me? What were the challenges?

With regard to the organisation of a room suitable for LEGO® Serious Play® and the time available, it was a challenge to offer all 60 participants the opportunity to be supervised by me in small groups for three hours each. In terms of content, it was great fun to accompany the problem-solving with this new method.

One challenge in the workshop was to motivate the groups to sort the various Lego pieces from the large boxes and place them back in the appropriate box after the content-related work.