On July 24th, Interactive Ontario held their monthly iLunch, which offers insightful workshops and seminars to professionals in the digital media industry.
This month, Interactive Ontario partnered with the Canadian Media Fund to host iLunch – Exploring the Future of Interactive Media through Lego Serious Play. The workshop was facilitated by Lindsey Ellis from 77Solutions, a certified facilitator of Lego Serious Play (LSP).
Attendees were divided into teams, and each member received a bag of Lego pieces with instructed to build different types of models. These models were intended to help them communicate ideas through Lego structures. These structures were metaphors for the answers to questions and prompts offered by the instructor. For example, creating the shape of an eye with Lego pieces can represent “perspective,” or building a bridge could mean “connection.”
LSP has an established set of rules for every participant to follow:
- You can’t alter the model of someone else
- You communicate through the model, not to the person who built the model
- Question the model, not the person
- You listen to every story
- You must share your story
The (Serious) Play
The first task was to build a model of a tower. After creating the model, each team member presented their creations to their team members and what had inspired them to build their tower model. With time, tasks became more complicated. In the final task, team members built two models to represent the future of the interactive media industry. These models illustrated what attendees would like to see in the future of interactive media, and expressed what they didn’t want to see. This was a great opportunity to talk about the model and its construction as well as the real-life challenges we face in the digital industry.
Each team combined these individual pieces to build a landscape. Our team’s landscape reflected what we hope to see in the future, including work-life balance, sustainability, and increased empathy in innovation.
The experience at LSP was an opportunity to share and merge creative minds together to discover how collaboration could synergize into a collective vision.
Results (More than just A Team Building Exercise)
As the workshop wound down, Lindsey shared that the LSP workshop was more than just a team building exercise, but a powerful way to “solidify the team dynamic.” Each team member had the freedom to share their raw and unique ideas, and then collaborate with others’ ideas for a stronger result.
“The LSP workshop isn’t just a team building exercise, it’s a way to solidify the team dynamic.” ~Lindsey Ellis
LSP was designed for larger organizations to set effective team goals. Teams using these exercises include NASA, Google, Pfizer, Yahoo, Honeywell, and more.
To wrap up, Lindsey shared key reasons why LSP can be an effective tool for large organizations to goal-set collaboratively.
“Your organization can benefit from LSP when:
Everyone has an interest in the outcome
Every voice needs to be heard
You need a robust and inclusive solution
You want to increase team understanding, commitment, and morale
You want to encourage new learning and fresh thinking
A few people typically dominate the conversation
You want to have some hard fun with great results.”
The LSP workshop proved to be a winner – in turnout and in results for the iLunch series. Interactive Ontario expects an overall increase in attendance and satisfaction for future iLunch events due to the success of LSP.
Interactive Ontario continues to extend an open invitation to anyone interested in learning more about interactive digital media to their monthly iLunch events. Keep up with all events hosted by Interactive Ontario for more learning and networking opportunities!
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