Nieto, Martinez-Treviño, 2023; Lucio-Nieto,
Gonzalez-Bañales, 2023).
Now, we have conducted a similar experiment
with Master’s degree students. They were asked to
make a similar project to prepare a digital
transformation proposal for a real company, but these
students are different from undergraduate students;
they are working in different companies and are
immersed in the organizational culture of each one of
them, so they could be in the situation of not being
confident enough to share knowledge in their
workspaces, but it could also mean that they have a
better understanding of what they are talking about.
When applying this activity to a graduate
students’ group, we were observant to find out if this
activity was useful with them, who are adults and
have different experiences in their companies, and if
it was necessary to adapt the FTCA activity or if we
could use it unchanged with the graduate students.
The objective of this paper is to present the results
of applying the FTCA activity (Lucio-Nieto,
Martinez-Treviño, 2023) to master’s degree students
and to report the differences and similarities between
the two groups of students, if the activity is useful
with graduate students, and if the activity had to be
adjusted because of the differences among the target
students.
2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.1 LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®
Lego Serious Play (LSP) is a methodology designed
to enhance innovation, facilitate deeper reflection
processes, and support effective dialogue between
team members. In a LSP session, participants are
asked to build LEGO models, which serve as a basis
for discussion, knowledge sharing, problem solving,
and decision-making (LEGO, 2024). LSP has been
developed as a means to explore and understand
complex issues that don’t have a simple or obvious
solution; initially, its purpose was to generate more
engagement, creativity, and playfulness in company
meetings (James, 2013).
The methodology asks participants to explain the
meaning of their models through storytelling and a
repeating sequence of active listening and expressing
their own opinion about the challenge they are
working with. This way, everyone’s perspectives are
considered when building the final proposal to solve
the challenge (LEGO 2010).
LSP enables a group of people to share ideas,
thoughts, and understandings so that they can engage
in meaningful dialogue and the generation of
innovative solutions to real-world problems (LEGO
2010). Research has shown that the process of
building something, which is then discussed, can lead
to much more valuable, insightful, and honest
discussions, as this process prompts the brain to work
differently and unlock new perspectives (LEGO
2010).
The concept “think with the body” has gained
support from psychology and neuroscience,
emphasizing that some cognitive processes are
strongly influenced by the way we use our bodies to
interact with the physical world. Building visual
reminders of the issue or the solution we are modeling
with the LEGO bricks aids our mental work. In
neuroscience, this is referred to as “reduction of
workload” because, by having visible and tangible
objects, we reduce the number of things that the brain
has to deal with simultaneously (LEGO 2010).
In a LSP session, all participants have the same
standing as they display their ideas through LEGO
models; that is, it is not important the position in the
company or the personality of each person; all
participants have the same voice, giving the leaders
the opportunity to listen to junior members of the
team’s insights that in other kinds of meetings could
not be expressed (LEGO 2010). When participants
make their ideas and thoughts tangible through
LEGO brick models, they can reflect on their own
ideas, but more importantly, they can invite others to
reflect and contribute to their models. This
collaborative aspect of LSP makes the activity
engaging and meaningful, as everyone can contribute
to making emerging ideas stronger (LEGO 2010).
LSP gives participants the freedom to present
their ideas without fear of being wrong or being
judged. When a participant explains his model, he
gives it a meaning that the other participants accept
(James, 2013).
2.2 LSP in Digital Transformation
LSP has been used in digital transformation; in their
study, Cox and Evans used LSP to facilitate
storytelling to enable knowledge sharing. Storytelling
is a known way to share knowledge, and LSP gives
the possibility to express people’s ideas to all the team
members, no matter their personality or their
organization's position (LEGO 2010). Cox and Evans
found that the LSP workshops helped to create
connections between people and connected everyone
in a shared vision so that they could build a concrete
and collective representation of the organization’s
vision, with the active participation of all employees;