You have read about LEGO® Serious Play®, maybe downloaded the open source guide, and now you want to run a session with your own team. This step-by-step guide is for facilitators, trainers, coaches, and team leaders preparing their first LEGO® Serious Play® workshop. It walks through what to prepare, how to run the core building process, a sample half-day agenda, and the mistakes that trip up most new facilitators. If you have not read it yet, start with our overview of the LEGO® Serious Play® open source PDF guide, which explains where the method comes from and what the official guide covers.
What You Need Before You Start
A clear purpose. LEGO® Serious Play® works best on a real question that matters to the group: how the team works together, what the strategy should be, what a new culture would look like. “Have a fun team activity” is not enough, because the method depends on participants building answers to meaningful questions.
The right bricks. Each participant needs their own set. The LEGO® Serious Play® Starter Kit or Exploration Bag is enough for a first workshop, and the Identity and Landscape Kit adds more metaphorical pieces (people, animals, trees, ladders) for richer models. Avoid a random tub of bricks from home, since the sets are designed with a wide range of pieces that invite metaphor.
The right group size. Plan on four to eight participants per table and per facilitator. You can run larger groups with multiple tables, but each table needs enough time for every person to share, and that time grows with every seat.
Enough time. Skills building alone takes 45 to 60 minutes. A focused first workshop needs at least three hours, and many run a full day.
The Core Process: Question, Build, Share, Reflect
Every LEGO® Serious Play® activity follows the same four-step loop, and learning to run it well is most of the facilitator’s job.
- Pose the question. The facilitator gives a building challenge, such as “Build a model that shows what you bring to this team.”
- Build. Each person builds their own answer, in silence, within a time limit of a few minutes.
- Share. Each builder tells the story of their model. Everyone shares, and the builder decides what the model means.
- Reflect. The facilitator and group ask questions about the model to go deeper, then look for patterns across the table.
The loop is simple, but it does something rare in meetings: everyone thinks before anyone speaks, and every person gets equal airtime. That is why quiet team members often contribute more in a LEGO® Serious Play® session than in any other format.
Step 1: Write Your Building Questions
Your building questions are the design of the workshop. Start with the outcome you want and work backward to a sequence of three to five questions that build on each other. Each question should be open, personal, and answerable with a model in a few minutes.
For a team working through a reorganization, a sequence might be: “Build a model of you at your best at work.” Then: “Build a model of what this team is like today.” Then: “Build a model of what this team needs to become in the next year.” Then the group combines the last set of models into a shared picture. Test your questions by building your own answers before the workshop. If a question is hard for you to build, it will be harder for participants.
Step 2: Set Up the Room
Use tables of four to eight with enough space for each person to build and display models in front of them. Put a set of bricks at every seat before people arrive, and keep extra pieces in the middle of each table for the shared model later. Have a timer visible, a phone or camera for photographing models, and sticky notes for capturing key words. A room with natural light and space to walk around between tables makes later gallery walks easier.
Step 3: Run Skills Building First
Never skip skills building. Most adults have not built with bricks in years, and some will be uneasy about it. The first 45 to 60 minutes teach three things: how to build, how to use bricks as metaphor, and how to tell a story about a model.
A common sequence starts with a simple tower build to get hands moving. Next comes the duck challenge: everyone builds a duck from the same six bricks in one minute, and the table sees how many different ducks appear from identical parts. Then participants turn their duck into a model of something about themselves, such as a strength or a mood, which introduces metaphor. Finally, a short build like “a model of your ideal weekend” gives everyone a low-stakes first practice at telling the story of a model. By the end of skills building, people are ready to use the bricks on real questions.
Step 4: Build Individual Models on the Real Challenge
Now move to your prepared building questions. Keep the time short, usually three to five minutes per build, and remind people to start building before they have a plan. Thinking with the hands is the point, and ideas often appear in the model before they appear in words.
If someone freezes, encourage them to pick up a few pieces that catch their eye and start connecting them. A model does not need to be finished or pretty. A single brick with a figure on top can carry a powerful story.
Step 5: Guide the Sharing
Go around the table so every builder tells the story of their model. Two rules protect the process. First, the builder owns the meaning: others ask questions but never reinterpret someone’s model for them. Second, questions go to the model, not the person. Asking “What does this ladder in your model stand for?” feels safer than “Why do you feel that way?” and usually gets a more honest answer.
Your job as facilitator is to ask good follow-up questions, keep time fair across builders, and notice themes. When a sales team member builds a bridge that only reaches halfway across, a question like “What would it take for this bridge to reach the other side?” can open the conversation the whole team needed to have.
Step 6: Build a Shared Model
Once individual models are shared, ask the group to combine them into one shared model. Each person chooses the part of their model that matters most, and the group decides how the pieces connect and where they sit on the table. This negotiation is where alignment happens, because people have to talk about what belongs together and what is missing.
For strategy or system work, you can go further by building a landscape: arranging models on the table to show how they relate to each other and to outside forces, such as customers, competitors, or regulations. First workshops usually do well to stop at one shared model and do it thoroughly.
Step 7: Close With Meaning and Next Steps
Photograph every model before anyone takes it apart, since the photos become the record of the session. Then ask the group to name what they learned and what it means for how they work. A useful closing build is “Build one thing you will do differently starting next week,” followed by a quick round of sharing. Capture commitments in words, with names and dates, so the session leads somewhere.
A Sample Half-Day LEGO® Serious Play® Agenda
- 0:00 to 0:15: Welcome, purpose of the session, and the ground rules for building and sharing.
- 0:15 to 1:15: Skills building: tower, duck, metaphor, and a first story.
- 1:15 to 1:30: Break.
- 1:30 to 2:30: Individual builds on two or three real questions, with sharing and reflection after each.
- 2:30 to 3:15: Shared model of the team or challenge.
- 3:15 to 3:30: Closing build, commitments, and photographs.
Common Mistakes New LEGO® Serious Play® Facilitators Make
Skipping or rushing skills building. Participants who have not practiced metaphor build literal models and tell thin stories. The first hour pays for the rest of the day.
Asking too many questions. Three or four good building questions with full sharing beat eight rushed ones. Depth comes from the reflection, not the number of builds.
Interpreting models for people. When the facilitator says “I think this means…” the builder stops owning their story. Ask instead.
Tables that are too big. With ten or more people at one table, sharing takes so long that energy drops. Split into smaller groups and bring them together later.
Forgetting the outcome. A session can feel wonderful and still produce nothing. Plan from the start how models and insights will turn into decisions and next steps.
Keep Learning or Bring in an Experienced Facilitator
The fastest way to build confidence is to run a small, low-stakes session with colleagues first, then debrief what worked. To go further, test yourself with the LEGO® Serious Play® quiz and assessment, and take our self-paced LEGO® Serious Play® Workshop Training course, which walks through the method and your first session and includes a certificate. For help designing a specific session and practicing it with feedback, see our innovative facilitator training.
If the stakes are high, such as a leadership offsite, a strategy session, or a team going through change, an experienced facilitator can design and lead the session so you can take part. Learn about our LEGO® Serious Play® workshops for organizations, or contact us to talk about your group.
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