Katrin Elster
Thought leadership for strategic co-creation since 2006
When Katrin Elster first worked with LEGO® Serious Play® in 2006, the method was virtually unknown in Germany. She immediately recognized its potential – and began to unlock it. Hoffmann Consulting GmbH became an official LEGO A/S partner in Germany, Katrin established StrategicPlay® as a brand, and helped develop the certification standards with LEGO A/S according to which her participants are still trained today. She played a key role in shaping what others are discovering today.
But she didn’t stop.
LEGO® Serious Play® allows for the creation of shared visions and the exploration of different futures – that’s extraordinary. But Katrin wanted to go the whole way: from shared vision to binding action, from good intentions to real impact. So she asked the question that no one else was asking at the time: What does it take for collaborative LEGO® Serious Play® models to truly make a difference? CoCreACT® is the answer – her own method, in use since 2015 and continuously developed ever since. CoCreACT® combines tools, skills, and mindset into a coherent framework for co-creative transformation – not as a one-off project, but as an ongoing practice for anything complex, ambiguous, and uncertain. CoCreACT® is available in three specializations: Those who truly want to share creative power learn to catalyze co-creation. Those who want to navigate uncertainty develop ambiguity competence. Those who want to lead co-creative processes themselves become facilitators.
As a speaker, she gives keynote speeches several times a year on the topic of “Leading in Ambiguity”, including at the German Armed Forces Leadership Academy, and writes books because she believes that good ideas need language to grow.
What their participants appreciate
Katrin’s training sessions follow a didactic approach based on one principle: experience first, then understand, then apply. Each phase is first experienced from the participants’ perspective – and only afterwards analyzed in a debriefing from the facilitator’s perspective. This creates a lasting understanding, not because it was explained, but because it was experienced.
Behind this lies a philosophy: Katrin trusts that everyone has something to contribute – in their own way. Creativity is not a talent that some have and others don’t. Her training sessions are designed to make precisely this tangible.
The common thread is always clear. The content builds upon itself, step by step, until on the last day all the pieces of the puzzle fit together – exactly as promised. The debriefings are perfectly timed: not too early, not too late, but precisely when one’s own experience warrants reflection. Katrin’s language is precise – those who have participated in her workshops realize afterward how imprecise their own language often is and begin to change it. This effect extends far beyond the training itself.
The training doesn’t end on the last day. Accompanying learning sessions, materials for your first workshops, and direct contact options: many participants hold their first mini-workshop shortly after the training.
What long-standing customers appreciate
Katrin doesn’t work for clients, she works with them. She’s known many of her favorite partners for years, some for more than a decade. Because every year something new emerges: a different question, a new method, a different team. This isn’t by chance, but the result of work that doesn’t end with the last workshop.
She enjoys working regularly with long-standing clients at colleges and universities. She recently spoke about co-creation in the “LandSchafftWissen” podcast of the Holzminden-Höxter Future Center.
Co-creation is Katrin's approach.
Katrin doesn’t write books because she has to. She writes because writing is a form of further thought for her – and because she believes that strategic co-creation should reach more people than she herself can train.
POWER! Co-creating good intentions into real impact Katrin Elster & Dörte Schröder, 2025
Workshops that repeatedly address the same topics without any real change. Transformations that generate more frustration than progress. The problem isn’t with people or methods, but with the question of how much change is truly desired – and what kind of creative power those involved need to achieve it. POWER! makes co-creation tangible as an attitude: from theory to concrete implementation in everyday work.
Leading in Ambiguity – How to Transform Uncertainty into Possibilities Katrin Elster & Tamara Christensen, 2022
Ambiguity cannot be resolved – it can be navigated. This book provides leaders and teams with a framework for developing their ambiguity competence: recognizing ambiguity, classifying it, and using it as a space for shaping the future, instead of waiting for clarity that never comes.
And because co-creation only grows through lived community, Katrin builds communities – pro bono, driven by her own initiative, as places for personal learning and inspiration. She co-founded play4agile in 2010, an annual unconference where agility and co-creation converge. Not as an organizer curating a program, but as a co-creator in a format that thrives because everyone contributes. She founded CREA Germany e.V. in 2015 because creativity as a social force deserves more space. The crea[gap]lab UnConference is its current public format.