Building Blocks of Innovation: Introducing Lego Serious Play at BPP
It’s been six months since I joined the BPP family, and what an exciting journey it has been!
One of the highlights of my journey so far is building a team of Service Designers. Together, we’re helping our teams break down complex problems during our Product Discovery with design thinking and service design methodologies. It involves creating visual artefacts as a tool to tell stories and convey user insights. We were curious how Lego could tackle problems in a new way and teamed up with Patience Davis Consulting to discover how — or at least it’s a great excuse to play with Lego! Thanks to Hari and Aaron, they bought two giant bags of Lego in our office one afternoon and facilitated the space for us to learn, play, and create, adding an exciting dimension to our endeavours!
What is Lego Serious Play (LSP)?
It’s a method that encourages us to think differently and engage in conversations that can drive innovation, product journeys, new ways of working, and strategy. We wanted to bring some of our learnings and successes from Innovation Week and running Problem Framing workshops to make it relevant and useful for everyone. This involved working in small groups of 5–6, focusing on real problems to solve at BPP, and inviting Product Managers, Product Operations, Product Designers, and Service Designers to join in the fun.
What we did
The workshop kicked off with a warm-up activity of building individual models to represent ourselves. Surprisingly, it revealed aspects about us beyond our work selves — including my own. My Lego tiger and turtle represented the balancing act of fast and slow in early motherhood. Lego instantly provided a safe way for everyone to contribute simply by thinking with our hands.
The session followed four key steps: Question, Build, Capture, and Share. Working with Hari and Aaron, we identified the cathedral question — a metaphor for how we want to open up the dialogue that could lead to unexpected insights. We landed with “What does our future onboarding experience look like in 3–5 years?” The intention to start with the end in mind and work backwards to what we might need to do. It landed well expressed by one of the Product Managers:
“They did an excellent job of finding balance between creative… without becoming too blue sky thinking or detached. I have attended activities in past which were pleasant but I didn’t find useful or truly related to work I was doing. This was not like that, suspect in part this was also due to excellent upfront planning”
In 2.5 hours, we built individual and shared models of ideas representing our collective vision of the future onboarding experience. One group explored what the future onboarding could be for learners whilst the other explored what it meant for our internal staff. We encouraged active listening, bringing elements from everyone’s ideas into one combined model.
Additionally, we created a landscape model identifying blockers and boosters to reach our future state, be it technological, procedural, or cultural. As we shared ideas, we captured and distilled insights into visual cue cards, facilitating recall of our discussion.
What we learned
The most valuable part of the session was the open sharing and discussions. It provided a playful and curious approach to achieving a greater alignment of the visions and principles in a frictionless way. We understood the journey of steps to help students overcome the hurdles in their learning journey whilst also the steps we need to take to provide a seamless experience for BPP and our staff.
We learned that metaphors are powerful, and Lego can quickly abstract complex problems for shared understanding without the jargon we often use internally, emphasizing the human aspect. A Product Manager expressed it well:
“I learnt that the use of metaphors in this technique can help people to zoom out when thinking about a problem. Which I felt could be a very useful tool for stakeholders.” — Product Manager
Alternatively, it demonstrated how building entire ideas in a short time can enhance efficiency and stimulate creativity at the same time!
“An abstract object + someone under pressure to explain that object = a thousand words” — Service Designer
Reflecting on this experience, I’m reminded of the magic that happens when we come together in person to collaborate and create, away from screens (including Miro). Witnessing the high synergy between team members as they shape the culture we want to work in has been the biggest win of all.
So, what’s next?
As we continue our Discovery journey, we walk away with:
- Continuing to ask the right questions to focus on solving customer needs from both business and student perspectives
- Identifying knowledge gaps and opportunities for further exploration, such as delivering great offboarding experiences
- Continue to involve stakeholders in discovery process to understand existing problems and share successes along the way
So, here’s to many more adventures, LEGO and otherwise, as we continue to shape the future of BPP and make a positive impact for our learners and staff.
Let’s keep building — one brick at a time!
