What is LEGO Serious Play?
LEGO Serious play harnesses principles of purposeful play to unlock creativity, sparking imagination and breeding innovation. Check out the short animation below for an introduction to LEGO Serious Play.
Through the use of metaphor and story, LEGO bricks are used to represent ideas, with participants building models in response to key challenges, before then sharing the stories of their builds with their peers. This generates ideas and insight to help inform what comes next.
Thanks to The LEGO Group’s generosity, through the power of the Creative Commons, the LEGO Serious Play method is available for all to use and reshape to fit their bespoke needs.
Broadly speaking, LEGO Serious Play can be described as a four-stage process: Challenge, Build, Share and Reflect.
Stage 1: Framing the Challenge

Key features of LEGO Serious Play Challenge Phase
The challenge is framed in the form of what we call a build question. Build questions serve as the stimulus for the builds. These are what participants respond to and – like all good instructional design – these build questions, when crafted thoughtfully, are objective aligned and help the participant to explore and meet these specific session objectives.
Constraints such as the available bricks and build time are shared at this point, along with what level of build participants will be engaging in.
LEGO Serious Play Build Levels
There are three build levels in LEGO Serious Play: Individual, Shared and Systems.
Whilst individual builds allow for the sharing of one’s personal thoughts, perspectives and ideas, Shared Builds require participants to collaborate – developing their essential 21st Century skills (collaboration, critical thinking and communication). System builds focus on interconnectivity and understanding complexity – making systems thinking visible to help individuals teams and organisations to better understand system behaviour.
Stage 2: Build
The build phase is where the magic really happens. Everyone builds, making LEGO Serious Play an equitable and democratic method. This is one of the reasons why this is such a fantastic tool for exploring team dynamics. Participants build models focusing on how each model element represents an aspect of their thinking.

Key features of LEGO Serious Play Build Phase
A ‘Big Idea’ and foundational principle of the method is that participants should ‘think with their hands’, using the LEGO bricks to articulate their ideas.
Builds can be completed as individuals or as a team where multiple participants work together to create a shared response to a particular build question. These models help participants to share their thinking with clarity. This is why we at SERIOUSWORK often refer to LEGO Serious Play as an enhanced communication technique.
Stage 3: Sharing Model Stories
Once the build is finished, participants share their model stories describing how each element represents aspects of their response to the build question – before then inviting their peers to ask any questions; encouraging curiosity and, in doing so, building connections between people and ideas.

Key features of LEGO Serious Play Share Phase
Active engagement is encouraged by challenging individuals to recap the meaning of people’s stories, making all participants accountable for understanding the meaning of all model parts.
In LEGO Serious Play, not only does everyone build, but everyone shares, making for an inclusive process. This democracy breaks down established hierarchies and promotes equity, giving a voice to all participants, not just the loudest.
During the sharing phase the physical model acts as a story-telling framework, providing participants with the scaffolding needed to socialise their ideas and socialise them for the benefit of others.
Stage 4: Reflections for Insight and Meaning Making
The real learning takes place during the reflection phase. This is where groups can take a deep dive into what has been shared in an effort to gain insight or spark creative thinking. Reflections in LEGO Serious Play are social, affording participants the opportunity to learn from each other.

Key features of LEGO Serious Play Reflection Phase
The facilitator very much guides the group through the process of reflection. How they choose to do this can vary hugely. They can use well crafted reflection questions and stimuli cards to encourage empathy and a shifted perspective; ‘Thinking Hats‘ to promote lateral thinking; or mental models to encourage deeper learning and insight.
And there you have it – LEGO Serious Play the SERIOUSWORK way.
Now that you know, what are you waiting for. Go play
Want to learn more?
SERIOUSWORK are experts in helping organisations to meet and exceed their unique objectives. We are experts in facilitating strategic systems thinking, and crafting bespoke learning experiences using purposeful play.
We are also the gold standard providers of LEGO Serious Play training.
If you would like to learn more about how we can support you, please check out the rest of our site – or schedule a call directly.