Example on how can you use Playmobil Pro in workshops

Roles, behaviours and expectations workshop

"When you have fun, your brain releases dopamine. Without fun, peak performance is practically impossible" - F. Fabritius 'The Leading brain - Neuroscience hacks to Work Smarter, Better, Happier'

Connection exercise at the beginning of the workshop - a strong start makes the difference for the participants and for how the whole workshop will be happening

Why connection exercise?

According to Self-determination theory (Edward Deci and Richard Ryan) , human beings have three basic psychological needs: a need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (connection).
Connect to past experiences, to something meaningful to you and connect with anyone who might have similar experiences or some from which you can learn/find out new things - inspired from Sharon Bowman Training from the Back of the Room methodology
Storytelling helps you share an experience while involving people in a familiar and safe environment.

Exercise using Playmobil pro used in the workshop to get to know each other with a great team who needed to get on personal level before getting trust while working together:

split the group in teams of 4-5 persons and ask them to pick up from the Playmobil Pro one figure and accessories which would help them tell a story about themselves: what are 3 things that helped you to get where you are now through your life (can be professional, can be private)
give them 1 min to each participant to share their story in their group
after everyone is ready sharing ask them to pick up another accessory that would be an add on to the figure they presented and would be something they are willing to share with their group and they think the others do not know about them (can be anything)
give them 1 min to each participant to share this
after exercise is finished ask them to come back to the big group and share from each small group what they have learnt about their colleagues --> the outcome is amazing because they get to know each other at another level than in daily job, they relate to each other, find similar interests and can connect in this way

Exercise using Playmobil Pro used to understand each other values, principles and behaviors:

split the participants of the workshop in small groups of 4-5 persons and ask them to pick up from Playmobil Pro figure(s) and accessories which can create their view upon one situation that would exemplify how they would like the things to happen while they work
each participant shares in 1 min the story while the other ones are noting on sticky notes each idea that they get from the story
after the round is done in each group, ask them to pick up figure(s) and accessories which can create their view upon how they would definitely would NOT like the things to happen in work situations
each participant shares in 1 min the story while the other ones are noting down on sticky notes each idea they get from the story
after each group finishes, ask them in their small group to cluster ideas and eliminate duplicates and then to come in the big group and share the outcome of each small group --> in this way you can build cicles for values, principles and behaviors or simply find out in a playful way what the other ones like or not

This is a very powerful way to express between team members the way they want and do not want to work with each other and they can build up their ground rules in a very relaxing and creative atmosphere.

Exercise using Playmobil Pro used to raise the awareness of appreciation and create grateful moments between team members - can be used in mature formed teams, which know each other and worked with each other for a longer time:

ask each participant to pick up so many figures as their team has (if the team is big then split them in groups of 4-5 each) and pick up from Playmobil Pro accessories which would help them express for each participant what are they grateful for
ask them to make teams of 2 and share in 3 min to each other what they appreciate to the other one using the power of the role play figures
rotate the participants until every one was talking to all the other members
at the end ask them how they feel and what they want to take with them out of this experience, everybody shares the take away in 1 min each

It is an amazing exercise that can be used at the end of a workshop / retrospective or simply when the energy team level is down . It is a 100% way to bring up the good mood and good vibes within a team.