Lego Serious Play + Creating Together + Designing for Being with Jane Hession and Ronan Healy — DT101 E90

Dr. Jane Hession and Ronan Healy are the founders of How Might We, a service design studio in Ireland. We talk about Lego Serious Play, creating together, and designing for being.

Listen to learn about:

The importance of giving adults permission to be playful
The LEGO Serious Play method
How LEGO Serious Play can unlock creativity and innovation
The changing view of the workplace and how teams work post-COVID-19
Design for Being philosophy

Our Guests

Dr. Jane Hession and Ronan Healy are co-founders of How Might We, an Irish Service Design studio that facilitates meaningful conversations to improve employee and customer experiences.

At the very core of their studio’s capability is the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method. They LEGO Serious Play to make service design and systems thinking more accessible to organisations.

Ronan and Jane believe the LEGO Serious Play method has untapped potential in the corporate world and they see great potential for its usage.

Show Highlights

[01:24] Ronan and Jane talk about their very different career paths into service design.
[05:32] Moving home to Ireland after living in Australia and founding their studio.
[07:04] The How Might We studio and its services.
[09:44] An introduction to the LEGO Serious Play method.
[10:37] The role listening plays in How Might We’s workshops.
[10:58] The need for bravery and vulnerability in managers wanting to use Lego Serious Play.
[11:44] The importance of play.
[14:01] LEGO Serious Play encourages marginalized team members to speak up and share ideas.
[15:07] The three-step process Jane and Ronan start their workshops with.
[17:45] How LEGO Serious Play taps into our innate curiosity.
[18:21] Play as a prehistoric survival mechanism.
[19:33] The way in which Legos draw people into the experience.
[20:18] Jane offers thoughts on ways organizations can use LEGO Serious Play.
[20:44] COVID-19 is changing the way teams work and our ideas about the workplace.
[23:33] Using LEGO Serious Play with systems thinking and design.
[27:02] Embodied cognition.
[30:16] LEGO Serious play creates a social environment.
[31:31] Play vs playfulness.
[32:37] LEGO Serious Play as an extension of the mind.
[33:21] Ronan talks about the coherent communication that happens in a LEGO Serious Play session.
[34:27] Prototyping ideas using LEGO Serious Play.
[37:13] Having a physical object to play with can help teams better grasp the system they are working with, and subsequently ask better questions about the problem they are trying to solve.
[39:57] LEGO Serious Play democratizes the design process and levels organizational hierarchies.
[41:30} Jane and Ronan talk about how they work with clients.
[47:31] Designing for being.
[55:29] Complex Responsive Processes Thinking.
[56:12] LEGO Serious Play is open source.
[57:00] Be Brave and Play.

Links

Dr. Jane Hession on LinkedIn
Ronan Healy on LinkedIn
Ronan Healy on Twitter
How Might We website
How Might We on Twitter
How Might We on Instagram
How Might We on LinkedIn
Listen Notes: Dr. Jane Hession and Ronan Healy, The Power of Play
Lego Serious Play applications to enhance creativity in participatory design
Threshhold Concepts, LEGO Serious Play and whole systems thinking: towards a combined methodology
An Introduction to Complex Responsive Process: Theory and Implications for Organizational Change Initiatives
Ralph Stacey on complex responsive processes of relating at the Complexity and Management Conference

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Mapping and Service Design + Implementation + Accessibility with Linn Vizard — DT101 E17