Visual metaphors for collaboration planning in strategy meetings

Purpose – Using visual metaphors with physical artefacts can improve collaboration planning processes in strategic meetings. The study presented here aims to examine these processes.

Design/methodology/approach – In this study, the participants used the LEGO® Serious Play® method in strategic planning meetings. The meetings were video recorded, and a thematic analysis method was applied to produce coded themes and narratives of collaboration planning based on the visual metaphors used in the meetings.

Findings – The study participants built LEGO artefacts representing three primary visual metaphors of collaboration focussing on landscapes, interaction processes and shared goals. The participants began with building landscapes by stacking and connecting LEGO base pieces as surfaces to build on, and to represent separate physical locations and more abstract business concepts. Alternatively, landscapes were built to centre activities around key business stakeholders. In terms of interaction processes, the participants lined up LEGO character pieces to explore communications between product developers, salespersons, customers and external partners. As for shared goals, tower-like high structures were created to represent open discussions, data sharing, prototyping and threats that should be avoided.

Originality/value – This study shows that using visual metaphors with physical artefacts provides an effective method for planning strategic collaboration areas, communications and future goals. Creating and communicating visual metaphors using physical artefacts enhances the creativity and participation of the meeting participants. Our future work will focus on studying the use of physical artefacts other than LEGO pieces in different group meetings contexts to better understand the role of visual metaphors.