Examples of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Exercises

What is LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®?

LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP) is a creative and efficient method for team building. LSP can be used in almost any development process, whether it is for organizational development, strategic development or team development. If you want to get a more general introduction to the LSP method click here.

Why LEGO® for team building exercises?

LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® was developed to bring the creativity and engagement of play into the serious concerns of the business world. The LEGO® Bricks® are a means to develop effective story telling through building and sharing metaphors that convey business situations and development opportunities. By doing so, complexity is reduced, and valuable knowledge is shared. In this way, LSP makes it easier and more constructive to handle the challenges that teams and organizations are faced with. The concrete issues are “brought to the table” so to speak. Additionally,  LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® has proven relevant, involving and effective no matter if you are 4 or 200 participants.

LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® team building exercises – from two hours to several days.

The scope of a LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® workshop can vary from a couple of hours to several days. Some organizations use LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® to have a great time for half a day or so. They manage to have fun, while producing useful, tangible and innovative answers to concrete organizational or business-related challenges. Other companies use LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® more strategically to guide them through different development processes.

The core elements of a LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® team building exercise

All LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® team building exercises are built around the following framework:

• Ask a question.

• Build and give meaning to a LEGO® model.

• Tell and share a story about your LEGO® model.

• Ask questions and reflect.

The dialogue around the LEGO® models is free and open, and there are no predetermined answers. Therefore, there is no “right” or “wrong” in the room. This promotes participation, knowledge sharing and the creation of innovative solutions, while securing a safe environment for the participants.

LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® – Team building exercises

All LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® workshops consist of a general introduction to the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method. This is followed by skill building exercises that introduce the main concepts of the method. Skill building, furthermore, serves to get the participants in to a state of “flow” where joy, productivity and innovative capacity are high. In more extensive workshops, a range of complex exercises adapted to the concrete organizational and business-related context are used. Below, you will find some examples of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® team building exercises that we at Inthrface have used and further developed during our many LSP workshops.

The World’s Best Duck

The duck is a very simple exercise, but it still manages to contain all the core element of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®. The participants enjoy themselves, while engaged in “serious play” with a purpose. In the first part of the exercise, the participants are asked to build the world’s best duck using six LEGO® bricks. Then the participants explain to each other, what makes their duck the best duck in the world. In the second part of the exercise, the participants are asked to remove two bricks. Thus, building the worlds best duck using only four bricks and then tell the story about this magnificent duck. In this way, the duck exercise comprises of all the main elements of the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method in a very simple form:

• Construction – building a duck.

• Story telling – two different stories about a duck.

• Metaphor – the world’s best duck.

• Imagination – from six to four bricks – but still the best duck in the world.

The Tower

“The Tower” exercise focuses on introducing a competitive element – which is a key aspect of adult creativity and play. Each participant is asked to build the highest possible tower with a limited number of different bricks within a relatively short time period. To further stimulate creativity and build capacities, the exercise can be changed halfway through to also ask the participants to make the tower as stable as possible. This forces the participant to rethink their tower using their imagination and construction skills. Participants are then asked to rebuild the tower to express a relevant metaphor. It could be a metaphor for excellent cooperation, leadership, communication or any other theme that the organization or company wishes to work on.

LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Identity exercises

LSP outlines a variety of “identity exercises” where you use exercises and activities to get a clearer picture of a team, a company or an organization. All participants are asked to construct a model of how they see the identity of e.g. the organization. Then how other people see the organization and the identity of the organization when it is at its best. This is followed by a group exercise of building a collective model that expresses a shared internal, external and aspirational perspective on the organizational identity. A more detailed landscape could be built by adding agents (all external and internal factors that influence the organization, company or team) and connections between agents and identities. This LEGO® landscape can be used to play out strategic scenarios and extract concrete solutions to the challenges that the company or organization is faced with.

To read more about how we can help you build a strong and shared strategy for your company or organization through the use of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® click here. If you are looking for a method to strengthen your team then click here.

What do our clients say about LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® team building exercises?

At Inthrface we have facilitated more than 850 LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® workshops around the world during the last decade. Involving all kinds of people and development processes. Our experience is that many organizations find the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method attractive, because it raises their development processes to a new level, just as it increases involvement, creativity and innovative capacity.

“We believe that using LEGO® as a tool to express oneself is a great concept. The method brought people to a common platform and greatly enhanced articulation of thoughts in a creative way.”

Murali Iyer, CEO, Torm Shipping, India.

 “Inthrface is a very professional and competent collaborative partner. We can confidently recommend both Inthrface and the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method for other companies.”

Gisle Bakken, Personnel Director, AstraZeneca, Norway.