Engaging Team Events with LEGO® Serious Play®
What is LEGO® Serious Play®?
LEGO® Serious Play® is a well-established team facilitation technique made available by the LEGO® Group under an Open Source Creative Commons licence. Attendees of LEGO® Serious Play® events are guided through a series of themed building challenges using the famous LEGO® bricks.
The methodology is particularly useful for workshops aimed at:
- Teambuilding
- Setting team goals
- Creating a team vision
- Exploring team values
- Generating new ideas
Why work with LEGO® Serious Play® ?
LEGO® Serious Play® workshops are engaging team events that ensure there are no passive bystanders. Nobody leans back and disengages.
- Everybody participates in the building challenges
- Everybody builds their own models
- Everybody shares what their model means.
Further benefits:
- Promotes creative thinking
- Facilitates deeper and more inclusive conversations
- Results in actionable outcomes while having fun
- Creates a memorable experience.
How does a LEGO® Serious Play® event work?
Your facilitator will agree specific objectives for the workshop with you to ensure that the event is not just fun, but also productive. Based on the agreed objectives, your facilitator will guide participants through a series of themed building challenges using LEGO® bricks.
An example of a building challenge in a vision workshop could be: “Build a model that shows what your team will be famous for in 12 months’ time”. Each participant then builds their own model answering the question posed and explains the meaning of their model to the rest of the group. The team is invited to ask questions about each model to facilitate a deep understanding of each team member’s ideas, thoughts and feelings.
A great way to end a LEGO® Serious Play® eventis to ask the team to combine their individual models into a single team one. They will have to negotiate how the combined version should look whilst ensuring that the final model still contains elements from each team member.
During the event, the facilitator will capture themes, thoughts and ideas on flipcharts so that they can be processed later and turned into specific actions.
How long does a LEGO® Serious Play® event take?
We recommend a full day for a LEGO® Serious Play® workshop to allow sufficient time to build up themes, settle participants into the process and create actionable outcomes. Half-day events are possible but less effective.
Reviews from participants at LEGO® Serious Play® events
Find out more about LEGO® Serious Play® events
Contact me at hans@hansschumann.com to discuss how a LEGO® Serious Play® event could assist with your team and leadership objectives. I can provide quotes based on your bespoke requirements.