Corey’s accreditation and approach

Corey is an accredited LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator, trained in the core method and its application to strategy, team development, and complex problem-solving.

He combines LSP with:

  • frontline paramedic and emergency services experience

  • human performance and training expertise

  • debrief and after-action frameworks

The result is a version of LEGO® Serious Play® that is:

  • psychologically safe

  • structured enough for operational environments

  • flexible enough to explore the “messy edge” of real work

This is “fun for the sake of fun”. It’s a serious facilitation tool wrapped in something tactile and disarming.

How we use LEGO® Serious Play® in workshops

LEGO® Serious Play® is woven into Far Edge Studio | Performance workshops as a core method, not a gimmick at the end.

Typical uses include:

1. Exploring operational reality

  • “What does a ‘good job’ look like for us in the field?”

  • “What does it feel like when things start to go wrong?”

  • “Where do we actually make the critical decisions?”

Participants build models that represent their world - risk, uncertainty, tools, constraints, culture - and then connect them into a shared landscape. This makes implicit knowledge visible.

2. Mapping human performance under pressure

We use LSP to:

  • explore cognitive load, situational awareness, and decision points

  • surface the unwritten rules that drive behaviour

  • examine how training, leadership, and systems actually show up on the ground

This is particularly powerful when paired with case reviews, near-miss analysis, or post-incident learning.

3. Designing better ways of working

Once the current reality is on the table, we shift into:

  • “What needs to change?”

  • “What would ‘better’ look like for this team?”

  • “What practices and supports would help us perform at our best?”

Participants build future-state models, test ideas against constraints, and agree on concrete next steps that are owned by the group, not handed down from a slide deck.

4. Supporting debriefs and after-action reviews

LSP can be used as a structured debrief tool:

  • participants build models of what they saw, did, thought, and felt

  • this helps avoid blame language and “he said / she said” loops

  • the focus stays on understanding the system and improving performance

It works especially well when emotions are high or hierarchies are steep.

What a LEGO® Serious Play® session looks like

A typical session:

  1. Warm-up builds

    Simple, fast builds to get everyone comfortable with the bricks and the process.

  2. Individual models

    Each person builds a model in response to a carefully designed question (for example, “Build a model of your best day at work” or “Build what ‘operational readiness’ looks like for you”). Everyone explains their model.

  3. Shared models and landscape

    The group connects models into a shared system: relationships, tensions, dependencies, risk points.

  4. Scenarios and “what ifs”

    We introduce changes - a failure, a constraint, a new demand - and the group adapts the landscape, exploring options and responses.

  5. Reflection and commitments

    We translate insights into simple, agreed actions: what we’ll start, stop, and continue.

Sessions can run from 90 minutes as a focused activity, up to a full-day workshop when integrated into broader training or strategy work.

When LEGO® Serious Play® is a good fit

A typical session:

  • hear from every voice in the room, not just the loudest or most senior

  • explore complex, ambiguous problems where there is no simple right answer

  • work across silos or agencies with different language and culture

  • move beyond “tick box” engagement and into genuine shared understanding

  • create safer space for people to talk about risk, error, and performance.

It works well for:

  • emergency services

  • health teams and clinical educators

  • incident management and crisis coordination groups

  • leadership teams in high-stakes or remote contexts

  • community resilience and preparedness groups.

How it integrates with other Far Edge Studio work

LEGO® Serious Play® doesn’t sit on its own; it plugs into the rest of Far Edge Studio | Performance:

  • combined with scenario-based training, it helps teams plan, rehearse and reflect

  • combined with debrief frameworks, it makes lessons learned more memorable and shareable

  • combined with visual and film work, it can become part of documenting the story of a project or community.

If you’d like to explore how LEGO® Serious Play® could work in your context - whether it’s an emergency services unit, a health team, or a local community project - Far Edge Studio can design a session tailored to your real-world environment.

LEGO®, SERIOUS PLAY®, and the LEGO® minifigure are trademarks of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorise or endorse this website or Far Edge Studio.

LEGO® Serious Play® at Far Edge Studio

Building better thinking at the edge of the map

Far Edge Studio doesn’t just talk about human performance - we build it, literally, in front of people, using the LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) method.

Corey Armstrong is an accredited LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator. He uses the method to help teams working in complex, high-consequence environments surface what they know, challenge assumptions, and create shared understanding that’s hard to achieve in a standard meeting room.

What is LEGO® Serious Play®?

LEGO® Serious Play® is a facilitated thinking, communication, and problem-solving method where participants use LEGO bricks to build models that represent their ideas, experiences, and perspectives.

Instead of:

  • the same few voices dominating the conversation

  • people defaulting to “yeah, that sounds fine”

  • abstract concepts getting lost in jargon

… everyone builds, explains, and connects their models. The bricks become a shared language. You don’t need to be creative or “good with LEGO” - the method is designed so that every participant contributes, every time.