Nokia Siemens Networks
Planning in physical and virtual rooms
Led by Sean Blair
A European working group and its design agency, with colleagues joining by video, created a persona-driven 12-month intranet development plan.
Read the case study →
Online and hybrid facilitationOnline and hybrid sessions people take part in, not sit through
Workshops, meetings and LEGO® Serious Play® sessions online, or with some people in the room and some on screen. Designed for attention and participation, with outputs you can use. We have facilitated online with Zoom, Mural and Slido since 2020.
What we facilitate online
Online is not a lesser version of the room. It needs its own design.
- Strategy and planning workshopsSplit into focused sessions over several days.
- Hybrid leadership meetingsRemote participants contribute as fully as those in the room.
- LEGO® Serious Play® onlineEveryone builds at home, then shares on camera and on a shared board.
- Large online eventsBreakout rooms, live polling and visual synthesis for big audiences.
- Regional teams across time zonesSessions timed and shaped for teams spread across Asia and Europe.
- Facilitator trainingHelping your own people facilitate online well.
How we design for online
- Shorter sessions. Attention is shorter on screen, so a full day becomes several focused sessions.
- More small-group work. Breakout rooms give everyone time to speak.
- Visible thinking. Shared boards such as Mural let everyone see and build on each other's ideas.
- Live polling. Slido shows the headline view in seconds and lets people ask difficult questions anonymously.
- Good habits. We brief participants on how to take part well online.
Hybrid, done fairly
The risk with hybrid meetings is two classes of participant: those in the room and those on the screen. We design to prevent it, for example by having everyone use their own device for shared boards and polls, and by giving remote participants first turn in discussions.
The book on it
Sean wrote ONLINE, a guide to facilitating LEGO® Serious Play® online, after extensive trials with Zoom and Mural from 2020. Liam Isaac has trained hundreds of facilitators to work this way.
Case studies
Relevant examples
The Insights GroupLSP
400 voices shaped the strategy
Led by Sean Blair
Before setting strategy, The Insights Group asked every member of staff what its purpose meant to them: 14 workshops in Singapore, Dundee, Amsterdam, Berlin, the USA and online, then a synthesis day in Billund for 30 leaders.
Read the case study →
National Infrastructure Commission
600 experts, 6,000 pieces of evidence
Led by Sean Blair
Eight one-day evidence-gathering workshops for the UK's first National Infrastructure Assessment, each on a different theme: transport, digital, energy, water, flood risk and waste.
Read the full story →
IMEX GroupLSP
Association Day: next-generation associations
Led by Sean Blair
Designed and led with a team of IAF facilitators the day before IMEX Frankfurt: plenaries, nine parallel workshops and LEGO® Serious Play® insight on the future of associations.
Read the case study →English Schools Foundation, Hong KongLSP
One collaborative team across many campuses
Led by Liam Isaac
Liam designed and facilitated a senior management awayday, an executive team meeting and a workshop for vice principals from across ESF's schools, using LEGO® Serious Play® to build a shared vision of cross-campus collaboration.
Read the case study →
Spark InsideLSP
A shared vision for Dialogue in prisons
Led by Sean Blair
A UK charity brought together the practitioners in a new partnership to bring Bohmian Dialogue into prisons, to build a shared, realistic vision of what success would mean.
Read the case study →Questions
Common questions
Short, direct answers about how we work.
Is online facilitation as effective as in person?
For many purposes, yes, if it is designed for online. For the most sensitive or important conversations we still usually recommend meeting in person, or a mix.
Which platforms do you use?
Usually Zoom or Microsoft Teams, with Mural or Miro for visual collaboration and Slido for polling. We work with your organisation's tools where we can.
Can LEGO® Serious Play® work online?
Yes. Participants receive a kit, build at home and share their models on camera. Sean's book ONLINE describes how.
How long should an online workshop be?
We usually keep online sessions to two or three hours, with breaks, and spread longer work across several days.
You don't want a meeting. You want an outcome.
Tell us what you need to achieve. We will help you design the time together to get there, and reply within two working days.