LEGO® Serious Play® workshops: think with your hands in teams
When words aren’t enough, bricks take over. LEGO® Serious Play® is a facilitation method that uses 3D construction to unlock collective thinking, surface intuitions and make visible what so often remains unsaid in a conventional meeting.
The method
Where does LEGO® Serious Play® come from?
Developed by LEGO®’s R&D teams in collaboration with researchers from MIT and IMD Lausanne, the method is built on a simple insight: our hands often know what our minds haven’t yet put into words.
By building models with bricks, each participant simultaneously activates analytical thinking and intuitive reasoning — what neuroscience researchers call embodied cognition. The result: richer ideas, 100% participation, and decisions grounded in reality. We regularly integrate this method into our team seminars and collaborative workshops.
WHEN TO USE IT
When does LEGO® Serious Play® work best?
The method excels where challenges are complex, opinions diverge and solutions are hard to put into words. Here are the situations where it delivers the most value:
→ Clarifying a shared vision or organisational purpose
→ Defining strategic priorities in a leadership team or project group
→ Co-creating new products or services
→ Rebuilding cohesion during a period of transformation
→ Creative exploration of a complex problem with no obvious solution
→ Business creation or brand repositioning
2016
Maëlle Gaultier certified
+20,000
LEGO bricks in stock
+30
workshops run for our clients
In pictures
LEGO® Serious Play® workshops that leave a lasting mark
THE TRADE DESK
Team seminar
Breaking out of routine to open and close the seminar on a different note
PICKUP
Idea generation workshop
Collectively imagining innovative services and products to offer customers in the future
ENGIE
Team seminar
Co-building a roadmap and bringing all team members on board with a new strategy
MAIF
Foresight workshop
Imagining with members the future of mobility in 2050
Want to see more examples of workshops we’ve run for our clients? We share the details privately.
Why it works
What makes LEGO® Serious Play® particularly effective
Unlike traditional workshops where a few voices tend to dominate, LEGO® Serious Play® guarantees equal participation from every profile: introverts, extroverts, pragmatists and conceptual thinkers alike.
Everyone builds, everyone speaks, everyone is heard.
The hand thinks
3D building activates areas of the brain that speech alone can’t reach. Ideas emerge differently — more freely, more precisely.
Tangible results
The models are photographed and documented. The session doesn’t end with post-its — it ends with decisions.
100% active participation
The format requires everyone to build and speak: no passive observers, no single voice drowning out the rest.
Metaphor unlocks
Using a brick to express an abstract idea bypasses resistance and allows people to say things they wouldn’t dare put into words directly.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Everything you want to know about our LEGO® Serious Play® workshops
What a LEGO® Serious Play® workshop produces
The method is exploratory by nature: it lays the groundwork for more grounded decisions and can be combined with other techniques to deepen the solutions identified.
Photos of all individual and collective models, taken throughout the session
Written summary of decisions, areas of consensus and ideas identified (optional)
A shared language: the metaphors built become common references the team can use going forward
Actionable directions, combinable with other methods such as Creative Problem Solving or design thinking
Want to run a LEGO® Serious Play® workshop
in your organisation?
Get in touch to design the right format for your team.
Also explore
Other PROPULSIO facilitation methods
Design thinking
Putting people at the centre to design solutions that are desirable and feasible.
Agile project management
Scrum, Lean Startup, Kanban: running your projects in iterative mode.