What is Serious Play?

Serious play has existed in the organizational context for many years. Although it may sound like an oxymoron, the term speaks to the use of playful approaches for serious purposes, often in a learning, skill-building, sense-making or insight-gaining process. The term became popularised in Michael Schrage’s 2000 book, Serious Play: How the World’s Best Companies Simulate to Innovate, and now is becoming increasingly recognised and used in a range of professional and educational contexts.

Play has a very important development role for humans and in the animal world. It is a primal activity. Researchers have found a strong link between brain size, and the level and complexity of playfulness in larger-brained mammals (Iwaniuk, Nelson, and Pellis, 2001). It seems that the more playful we are, the greater our brain capacity. We also have different ways to play. Stephen Brown in his 2009 book titled Play outlined eight play personalities found within adults: Joker, Kinesthete, Explorer, Competitor, Director, Collector, Artist/Creator, and Storyteller. We tend to have a dominant type from one of these personalities.

Although we often think of play as being for children, it has a very important role in adults as well and takes a number of forms. LEGO® Serious Play® methods is one of the more well-known forms of serious play for adults, but there are many other forms used by businesses, governments, the military, and educational institutions. Serious play can be a vehicle for training, ideation, conflict resolution, leadership development, team development, strategic planning, and a range of other uses. Playing (and being playful) has an important role in the professional and corporate world. It isn’t only the domain of children.

Here at Serious Play Methods Inc., LEGO® Serious Play® methods is a major focus, but we also provide workshops, training, and facilitation using other methods, such as applied improv, role-playing or game-based learning, liberating structures, low-fidelity prototyping, simulations, and various team development methods. In most of these methods, reflection and discussion are a key part of the process to identify insights, learnings, and applications. The tools or the method is a means to accessing the learnings and the insights. Both Dr. David Newman and Lan Anh Nguyen are trained and accredited coaches working with teams and groups, enabling us to guide discussions for valuable insights, growth, and development.

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