by Rob

Lego Serious Play, Scrum and Agility

Fun Fact 🙂 I was working in a company, which claimed to be totally agile. Everywhere were Posters with drawings about agility and phrases copied from the Agile Manifesto and Scrum Guide. First of all Scrum is not agile and therefore the company hadnÄt understood the culture which is needed to work with Scrum successfully.

Nearby the company, I visited my first Scrum Serious Play Workshop. It was an amzing experience and I was totally enthusiastic about this method, to design new products or to enhance exsisting ones. But my visitors might have noticed, that agility is a bit of a fetish of me 🙂 So I did some reseach. Here’s what I discovered about the other way to enhance the communcation and the cooperation in a company, to become more succesfull and resilient towards the challeging markets nowadays.

When I came back and told our CEO & CTO about my experience, they said “Well Rob, we’re all grown up here, we don’t play with blocks, like in the kindergarden anymore!” 🙂

But let’s start woth the SERIOUS part 😉

Integrating Lego Serious Play into Scrum can enhance team collaboration, creativity, and understanding during various Scrum events. Here’s how you can incorporate Lego into the different Scrum events:

  1. Sprint Planning:
    • Visualization of Sprint Goals: Team members build models representing the sprint goals or specific user stories. This helps in aligning everyone’s understanding and expectations.
    • Identifying Challenges: Use Lego to construct potential obstacles or risks, facilitating proactive discussion on how to address them.
  2. Daily Scrum (Stand-ups):
    • Progress Representation: Team members quickly build models to depict what they worked on yesterday, plan to work on today, and any impediments they’re facing.
    • Enhancing Engagement: The tactile activity keeps the team engaged and can make daily stand-ups more dynamic and interactive.
  3. Sprint Review:
    • Demonstrating the Increment: Use Lego models to showcase the product increment delivered during the sprint, especially useful for abstract concepts or when physical products are involved.
    • Stakeholder Interaction: Encourage stakeholders to build their feedback or expectations using Lego, promoting active participation.
  4. Sprint Retrospective:
    • Reflective Building: Team members create models that represent their experiences during the sprint, highlighting what went well and what could be improved.
    • Facilitating Open Discussion: The models serve as a starting point for discussions, making it easier to address sensitive topics in a non-confrontational way.
  5. Product Backlog Refinement:
    • Clarifying Requirements: Build models of user stories or features to ensure a shared understanding between the Product Owner and the Development Team.
    • Exploring Solutions: Use Lego to prototype solutions, allowing the team to explore ideas before committing to them.

Benefits of Using Lego in Scrum:

  • Enhanced Communication: Visual and tactile methods can break down communication barriers, allowing team members to express ideas they might struggle to articulate verbally.
  • Increased Engagement: Hands-on activities keep participants actively involved, reducing meeting fatigue.
  • Creative Problem-Solving: Building with Lego stimulates creativity, leading to innovative solutions.
  • Team Building: Collaborative activities strengthen relationships and trust within the team.

Remark: during the first workshop I attended, we were asked to build a tree. One of the participants was a bit lost, because of insecurity and the fright to be regarded as incompetent. This blocked her (Fright to make mistakes (That’s why I regard failure culture as a culture of learning).

She had only put one “brick” on to of another one. Zhe facilitator told her “if you say that is a tree, we’ll all handle it as a tree”. That’s what I like about workshops and empathy during those workshops 😉

Tips for Successful Integration:

  • Set Clear Objectives: Ensure each Lego activity has a specific purpose aligned with the event’s goals.
  • Time Management: Allocate sufficient time for building and discussion without derailing the meeting agenda.
  • Facilitation: Consider having a trained facilitator to guide the Lego Serious Play sessions effectively.
  • Inclusivity: Encourage all team members to participate, valuing each contribution equally.

Incorporating Lego into your Scrum events can transform the way your team collaborates and solves problems. It brings a fun and engaging element to meetings, making agile practices more effective.

Agile Transformation and Digital Transformation

Lego in Agile Transformation

1. Facilitating Change Management:

  • Visualizing Processes and Workflows: Teams can build models representing current and future state processes, making abstract agile concepts tangible.
  • Understanding Roles and Responsibilities: Lego models help clarify new roles in agile frameworks (like Scrum Masters, Product Owners), easing the transition.

2. Enhancing Collaboration and Communication:

  • Breaking Down Silos: Collaborative building exercises encourage cross-functional teamwork and open communication.
  • Shared Language: Physical models create a common language, reducing misunderstandings and aligning team perspectives.

3. Problem-Solving and Innovation:

  • Identifying Obstacles: Teams can construct representations of challenges they face, facilitating collective problem-solving.
  • Generating Ideas: Lego stimulates creativity, leading to innovative solutions for process improvements.

4. Training and Workshops:

  • Interactive Learning: Incorporate Lego into training sessions to make learning agile principles more engaging.
  • Retention of Concepts: Hands-on activities enhance memory retention of new methodologies and practices.

Lego in Digital Transformation

1. Visualizing Digital Concepts:

  • Making the Abstract Tangible: Use Lego to represent digital strategies, architectures, and customer journeys, making them easier to grasp.
  • Prototyping Solutions: Build models of digital products or services to explore functionality and user experience.

2. Stakeholder Engagement:

  • Inclusive Discussions: Lego models can democratize meetings, allowing all voices to be heard regardless of technical expertise.
  • Feedback Mechanisms: Stakeholders can interact with models to provide input, ensuring the transformation aligns with business needs.

3. Change Adoption:

  • Addressing Resistance: Visual models help identify concerns and resistance points, enabling proactive management.
  • Cultural Shift: Encourages a mindset of experimentation and continuous improvement, essential for digital transformation.

4. Team Alignment:

  • Unified Vision: Building the company’s digital future with Lego ensures everyone shares the same vision and objectives.
  • Cross-Functional Understanding: Helps different departments understand each other’s roles in the digital landscape.

Benefits of Using Lego in Transformations

  • Enhanced Engagement: Interactive sessions keep participants actively involved, increasing buy-in for the transformation.
  • Improved Communication: Visual and tactile methods break down communication barriers, making complex ideas accessible.
  • Accelerated Learning: Hands-on activities promote faster understanding and retention of new concepts.
  • Creative Problem-Solving: Encourages out-of-the-box thinking, leading to innovative approaches to challenges.
  • Team Building: Strengthens relationships and trust among team members, crucial during periods of change.

Implementing Lego in Transformation Initiatives

1. Workshops and Training:

  • Design Thinking Sessions: Use Lego to facilitate design thinking workshops, fostering innovation.
  • Agile Bootcamps: Incorporate Lego exercises to teach agile methodologies in an engaging way.

2. Strategy Development:

  • Vision Building: Teams construct models of the desired future state, aligning strategic goals.
  • Roadmapping: Visual timelines and milestones can be built to plan out transformation journeys.

3. Retrospectives and Reviews:

  • Reflective Modeling: Teams build representations of past projects to analyze successes and areas for improvement.
  • Celebrating Achievements: Use Lego to commemorate milestones, boosting morale.

ips for Successful Integration

  • Professional Facilitation: Consider hiring a certified Lego Serious Play facilitator to guide sessions effectively.
  • Clear Objectives: Define the goals of each Lego activity to ensure they contribute to the transformation.
  • Inclusive Participation: Encourage all team members to contribute, fostering a sense of ownership.
  • Safe Environment: Create a space where participants feel comfortable expressing ideas and concerns.
  • Time Management: Allocate sufficient time for building and discussion without overwhelming schedules.

Incorporating Lego into your Agile and Digital Transformation efforts can make the process more engaging, collaborative, and effective. It transforms abstract concepts into physical models, making them easier to understand and work with.