This exercise was co-created as part of a collaboration day between myself and Paul Goddard

Timing:

60 minutes

Materials:

A lot of Lego

(Optional) A Digital Camera and Photo printer

Instructions:

Preparation

Ask the group to come up with:

  1. a person from history,
  2. a colour and
  3. an object.

Construct a title out of these e.g. The story of Napoleon and the yellow pillow

Set the challenge:

  1. To create a storyboard of this story by building scenes made from Lego.
  2. There will be 3 sprints of 12 minutes (2m plan, 7m build & 3m review)
  3. Each sprint must contain a start and end of the story and be in line with the vision (title)
  4. Each scene must contain some action

If there are multiple teams playing:

  • At the end of Sprint one ask each team to think of a location and then gave Team 1’s location to Team 2 and so on. This location must then be incorporated into their story.
  • At the end of Sprint two, ask them to think of a leisure activity or a secondary character which will then be given to another team

If only one team is playing, throw in a location or character etc yourself

Learning Points: 

  • How a vision + self-organisation can create a successful product
  • Refactoring is necessary (and a good thing)
  • Getting something done (vertical slice) each sprint (start and finish)
  • Do something simple first then embellish
  • How self-organising teams can be very creative
  • Teams must be able to accommodate change while maintaining a consistent theme
  • Seeing results at the end of the sprint is useful and motivational
  • There should be a sense of pride about what they create

Variations: 

  1. Expand the “definition of done” to include a photograph of each scene
  2. Incorporate feedback from “stakeholders” (the other teams) into the planning of the next Sprint

2 thoughts on “Once Upon A Time In Legoland

  1. Hey this is very interesting. I will be applying this exercise on a creativity workshop. Thank you for sharing.

    Cheers

    Jesus Salas

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