Our Australian partner, Dr Denise Meyerson of Management Consultancy International (MCI), reports enthusiastically on the successful workshop of a "Womenbuild Session" at the Microsoft PDC Conference on 26 October2008.Dr Denise Meyerson, Educational Director MCI

The five-hour WomenBuild session was based on the proven LEGO SERIOUS PLAY principles and challenged the group to develop a wide variety of models on the topic: What does it take to build your own dynamic network to support women and link it to other strong networks?

The participants recognised that it is particularly important to support girls and young women early on in their careers, e.g. through a mentoring programme. The participants ended the session with a clear common understanding of how the career path for women in technical professions can be inspirational.

As expected, the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY concept implemented during the session focused the group's discussion on joint creative work on the topic. At each table, the discussion was supported by targeted moderation and the building of LEGO models, so that the multifaceted opinions and experiences were optimally brought out.

MCI is convinced that Microsoft has thus proactively promoted the topic of "diversity" and facilitated unhindered career entry into software development.

The original article can be found on the Management Consultany International site.