Date: Thursday, April 9, 2026
Hello, AEA365 community! Liz DiLuzio here, Lead Curator of the blog. This week is Individuals Week, which means we take a break from our themed weeks and spotlight the Hot Tips, Cool Tricks, Rad Resources and Lessons Learned from any evaluator interested in sharing. Would you like to contribute to future individuals weeks? Email me at AEA365@eval.org with an idea or a draft and we will make it happen.
Hi, I’m Dana Benjamin-Allen, founder of Back of the Napkin Consulting, a strategy and data advisory firm working with nonprofit and public sector organizations. We help teams make sense of their data, and are on a mission to make data useful to those closest to the work. Part of that work is helping groups surface what they already know and turn it into something they can use. In this post, I share a facilitation approach that has changed how I help groups design strategy and make sense of complex ideas together.
Evaluation asks people to answer hard questions. What leads to change? How does this program affect the communities it serves? Are we achieving what we set out to do?
These questions are harder to answer than they seem, and people often talk around ideas they cannot quite name. In group settings, dynamics and communication style shape who gets heard. Senior leaders, analytical thinkers, and quick processors tend to drive the conversation, while others defer or struggle to find the right words fast enough.
This is where LEGO Serious Play (LSP) earns its place in my facilitation toolkit.
LSP is a structured method where participants respond to questions by building models with LEGO bricks. Instead of debating abstract concepts, everyone builds first and talks second, giving each person the same time to consider the question and form a response. When participants explain their build, they literally point to the idea they are describing.
When I use LSP in evaluation contexts, something shifts that traditional conversation rarely achieves.
Consider the difference between these two moments in a room:
“I think the program works because of relationships.”
“This tower represents the trust that builds over time. This bridge shows how staff connect youth to resources.”
The first is a belief. The second is a theory of change you can examine. You can ask what the tower is built on, what happens when the bridge breaks, and whether the connection holds across different populations served. The model makes the thinking testable.
This is especially useful when building logic models. Participants construct activities, outcomes, assumptions, and contextual factors as physical components. Individual models are then connected using an “if, then” framework, resulting in a three-dimensional relational diagram of how a program works.
Serious Play is not an oxymoron. Rigor and fun are not mutually exclusive.
LSP was developed by strategy scholars Johan Roos and Bart Victor to help leadership teams work through complex organizational decisions. The research base has grown well beyond management and organizational strategy. Published work spans cognitive psychology, positive psychology, mental health and wellbeing, equity and inclusion, higher education, and qualitative research methodology.
Across different fields, researchers keep arriving at the same conclusion: thinking with your hands works.
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.