Design Thinking   - Storytelling with “ LEGO ® Serious Play ” 

 Selection and Challenge 

 Storytelling is a professional method to transform implicit , often emotional thoughts into   understandable and tangible informations . Nearby , the empathic power of storytelling   increases commitment und visualizes complex ideas . For example through metaphors . 

 Comprehensive research shows a bright variety of the storytelling - toolset . One is LEGO ®   Serious Play . It is a kit of uncountable , colorful plastic - bricks and characters which the involved   people normally know from their childhood . It helps to get metaphoric thoughts in a literally   tangible story to tell . It guides teams to communicate visually , share ideas and last but not   least : think and tell their story “ with their hands ” . 

 In the concrete case , storytelling with LEGO ® was used to work with my team on a vision ,   mission and basic understanding for our new department , called “ Information Management   Sales ” . The department ’s scope is to collect , bundle , manage and control informations . Until   now , that was not existent : informations were spread without clear rules and organisation   from 30 inhouse units all over the company to 4.000 salesmen . 

 Application 

 The idea for the Application came within a team - meeting . The participants were outdoing   each other by using metaphors . Specially for their sight on the new departments role , scope ,   behaviour and approach . We had to short cut that process by using the storytelling - method ,   guided with the LEGO ® serios play set . 

 In the beginning , we had some warm up - exercises to get used to the LEGO ® set – and to get   focused on the story , not on the bricks : 

 • “ Build a duck using 7 bricks ” – and 

 explain , why it ’s still a duck , unless you   remove 3 bricks . 

 • “ Build your dream colleague ” – and 

 comment it with post - its * . 

 The transitory and modifying character of their first prototypes helped moreover to eliminate   the fear of failure in the next steps . 

 In the second task everyone had to “ build ” his own story according to the new department   key questions and comment it with post - its * . The team was split in 2 groups and the team   members told their stories to each other . 

 The key questions were : 

 • Assignment of the department : Describe the role of the new department in context 

 to the other departments . 

 • Processes and Scope : How do we want to act to get maximum information benefit 

 for the salesmen – and minimum conflicts with the other departments . 

 In the third iteration every group hat to build ONE shared story out of the individual stories . 

 As the provided questions were equal for both teams , the last step was to show the results to   each other and merge them to one story , called “ the model ” . The final story presentation was   documented by video . All steps were embedded in short timeslots , controlled by a time- boxing - clock . All in one , it did n’t take 2 hours . 

 sticky small paperstripes which can be commented with a pencil 

 Insights and Approach 

 Story telling - especially with the LEGO ® toolset – was the perfect choice . The team - meeting   started with gamification and ended with one serious , well-„told “ story . All main questions   got answered . The team was encouraged to listen to each other and reached a new level of   common ground . Every voice got heard and all ideas got shared equally . The incremental steps   helped to modify and fertilize the ideas . The team developed a deep understatement of the   challenges and committed itself to the work results . At the end , they were able to take a   strategic decision and to derive operative binding to the next steps . 

 I know weaker approaches to design new departments . As alternative – before i knew design   thinking – i would have used „ visualisation at flip charts “ with two contents : 

 • Defining „ in and out of scope “ of the new department and 

 • Visualising the new role and interfaces through the SIPOC - method ( lean six sigma 

 toolset ) , that delivers insights about the suppliers , their inputs , the process , the   output and the customers (= receivers ) of the informations . 

 But the gamification - based storytelling with LEGO ® was the better way , and new for me ! A   very valuable method for my future and daily work . 

 I think , story telling is usable with tremendous diversity , that it bursts my imagination . And it   helps even interdiscplinary teams to communicate , understand and commit . Collaboration   becomes so easy and without time - eating detours – even with heterogene participants and   difficult , complex challenges . LEGO ® was a good carrier of the metaphoric ideas to become   tangible „ stories to be told “ . 

 I became a fan of storytelling ! 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Design Thinking   - Storytelling with “ LEGO ® Serious Play ” 

 Selection and Challenge 

 Storytelling is a professional method to transform implicit , often emotional thoughts into   understandable and tangible informations . Nearby , the empathic power of storytelling   increases commitment und visualizes complex ideas . For example through metaphors . 

 Comprehensive research shows a bright variety of the storytelling - toolset . One is LEGO ®   Serious Play . It is a kit of uncountable , colorful plastic - bricks and characters which the involved   people normally know from their childhood . It helps to get metaphoric thoughts in a literally   tangible story to tell . It guides teams to communicate visually , share ideas and last but not   least : think and tell their story “ with their hands ” . 

 In the concrete case , storytelling with LEGO ® was used to work with my team on a vision ,   mission and basic understanding for our new department , called “ Information Management   Sales ” . The department ’s scope is to collect , bundle , manage and control informations . Until   now , that was not existent : informations were spread without clear rules and organisation   from 30 inhouse units all over the company to 4.000 salesmen . 

 Application 

 The idea for the Application came within a team - meeting . The participants were outdoing   each other by using metaphors . Specially for their sight on the new departments role , scope ,   behaviour and approach . We had to short cut that process by using the storytelling - method ,   guided with the LEGO ® serios play set . 

 In the beginning , we had some warm up - exercises to get used to the LEGO ® set – and to get   focused on the story , not on the bricks : 

 • “ Build a duck using 7 bricks ” – and 

 explain , why it ’s still a duck , unless you   remove 3 bricks . 

 • “ Build your dream colleague ” – and 

 comment it with post - its * . 

 The transitory and modifying character of their first prototypes helped moreover to eliminate   the fear of failure in the next steps . 

 In the second task everyone had to “ build ” his own story according to the new department   key questions and comment it with post - its * . The team was split in 2 groups and the team   members told their stories to each other . 

 The key questions were : 

 • Assignment of the department : Describe the role of the new department in context 

 to the other departments . 

 • Processes and Scope : How do we want to act to get maximum information benefit 

 for the salesmen – and minimum conflicts with the other departments . 

 In the third iteration every group hat to build ONE shared story out of the individual stories . 

 As the provided questions were equal for both teams , the last step was to show the results to   each other and merge them to one story , called “ the model ” . The final story presentation was   documented by video . All steps were embedded in short timeslots , controlled by a time- boxing - clock . All in one , it did n’t take 2 hours . 

 sticky small paperstripes which can be commented with a pencil 

 Insights and Approach 

 Story telling - especially with the LEGO ® toolset – was the perfect choice . The team - meeting   started with gamification and ended with one serious , well-„told “ story . All main questions   got answered . The team was encouraged to listen to each other and reached a new level of   common ground . Every voice got heard and all ideas got shared equally . The incremental steps   helped to modify and fertilize the ideas . The team developed a deep understatement of the   challenges and committed itself to the work results . At the end , they were able to take a   strategic decision and to derive operative binding to the next steps . 

 I know weaker approaches to design new departments . As alternative – before i knew design   thinking – i would have used „ visualisation at flip charts “ with two contents : 

 • Defining „ in and out of scope “ of the new department and 

 • Visualising the new role and interfaces through the SIPOC - method ( lean six sigma 

 toolset ) , that delivers insights about the suppliers , their inputs , the process , the   output and the customers (= receivers ) of the informations . 

 But the gamification - based storytelling with LEGO ® was the better way , and new for me ! A   very valuable method for my future and daily work . 

 I think , story telling is usable with tremendous diversity , that it bursts my imagination . And it   helps even interdiscplinary teams to communicate , understand and commit . Collaboration   becomes so easy and without time - eating detours – even with heterogene participants and   difficult , complex challenges . LEGO ® was a good carrier of the metaphoric ideas to become   tangible „ stories to be told “ . 

 I became a fan of storytelling !
### Output: 