What is LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, where does it come from, and why does it work?
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is a facilitated method where everyone in the room builds an answer to a sharp question in LEGO® bricks and then tells the story behind the model. Here is the short history of why it was created, what it rests on, and where the value actually sits.
- Developed from the mid-1990s with researchers from IMD
- Core principles released as open source in 2010
- Everyone contributes — not just the three loudest voices
- Decisions with ownership, not just agreement
In short
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is not a play exercise, it is a way of working. A facilitator asks one precise question. Everyone builds their own answer in bricks for three to seven minutes. Then each participant tells the story behind their model, uninterrupted, with nobody interpreting anyone else's. Finally the group names the shared patterns and turns them into decisions.
The method rests on a simple observation: when the hand builds, words appear that the head had not found on its own. What would otherwise have stayed a hunch or an unspoken concern becomes something concrete on the table that the group can point at and talk about.
The history in brief
Mid-1990s — the problem
The LEGO Group's then owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen was dissatisfied with traditional strategy planning: the same few people talked, the rest executed. He wanted a format that put the whole organisation's knowledge in play.
IMD in Switzerland — the research
Professors Johan Roos and Bart Victor were working on how strategy could be created by the people who have to live it. Together with the LEGO Group, the idea of building strategy became a method.
Around 2000 — the method
It was systematised into fixed phases, building challenges and an etiquette around the model, and used commercially by companies and public organisations worldwide.
2010 — open source
The LEGO Group released the core principles as open source material under a Creative Commons licence, so the method could be used and developed freely, with attribution and under the same licence.
The research base
The method draws on constructionism (we understand best what we build ourselves), flow theory, and research on the hand–brain connection: a large share of the brain's resources is tied to the hands.
Today
It is used for strategy, collaboration, culture, customer experience, mergers and prioritisation — wherever the topic is complex and it is not enough that only the most vocal contribute.
Why the method was created
The founding frustration was simple: strategy was thought up by the few and executed by the many. The plans were often professionally sound, but they never landed, because the people who had to carry them first met them as a finished conclusion on a slide.
At the same time everyone knew the lopsidedness of the meeting format: roughly a fifth of the participants speak most of the time. The knowledge of the others — those closest to the customers, the operation or the failures — never entered the decision. Not because it was missing, but because the format never asked for it.
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® answers both: a structure where everyone builds, and therefore everyone speaks, and where the difficult point can be made through the model rather than across the table.
Why it works
The hand thinks too
Building forces a vague idea to become concrete. You cannot build 'better collaboration' — you have to choose what it consists of. That choice is the thinking.
100% participation
Everyone builds at the same time and everyone tells. That removes the skew where the most vocal fill the meeting and the quiet experts go home with their knowledge intact.
The model owns the story
You explain only your own model, and nobody interprets anyone else's. That makes it possible to say something critical without it becoming personal — you point at a brick, not at a colleague.
Metaphor holds the hard stuff
Conflict, doubt and risk are easier to show than to say. Once they stand on the table as a figure, the group can work with them instead of walking around them.
Shared memory
A built strategy can be recalled months later, because it is tied to an image and a story the participants made themselves — not to a slide nobody opens again.
From agreement to ownership
Because each participant has put their own model in play, the group ends up not with polite agreement but with decisions people have committed to.
How big is the value — and how do you measure it?
The value of a workshop cannot be measured by whether people enjoyed themselves. We measure three things, and we measure them in your own programme rather than promising numbers up front:
- Participation: how much of the group actually put a position on the table? In a facilitated build session the answer is typically everyone — rarely the case in an ordinary meeting.
- Decision density: how many decisions left the room with a named owner and a deadline? Those are the ones we write into the decision log.
- Durability: how much of it is still alive after 90 days? We follow up with a short pulse check so you can see what moved and what stalled.
The financial value usually sits in two places: the time you do not spend reopening decisions that were never really made — and the wrong turns the group avoids because an objection finally made it onto the table. A prioritisation that would otherwise drag across a quarter can land in a day.
Where it fits — and where it does not
It fits when the topic is complex, opinions differ and you need everyone to contribute: strategy and direction, how a leadership team works together, culture and values, customer experience, mergers and integration, prioritising a list that is too long, and new teams finding their form.
It does not fit when the decision is already made, when the session is really one-way information, when the task is numerical optimisation, or when leadership is not ready to let the outcome have consequences. Then a workshop wastes everyone's time — we would rather say so beforehand.
The open source material and copyright
In 2010 the LEGO Group published an introduction to the core principles of the method as open source under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-SA 3.0) licence. The material describes the philosophy behind the method, the three core phases and the etiquette around the model.
- LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Open-source introduction (PDF) — the original material, published by the LEGO Group under CC BY-SA 3.0.
- The LEGO Group's own background page on the method — on its origins and purpose.
LEGO, SERIOUS PLAY, the Minifigure and the Brick and Knob configurations are trademarks of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse Strategy in Play. We are an independent facilitation practice and platform. When we use or adapt the open source material we do so with attribution to the LEGO Group and under the same CC BY-SA 3.0 licence. We do not reproduce copyrighted material that has not been released under that licence.
Frequently asked questions about the method
When did LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® originate?+
The idea took shape in the mid-1990s, when the LEGO Group's then owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, together with professors Johan Roos and Bart Victor of the IMD business school in Switzerland, looked for a better way to do strategy work. The first commercial programmes appeared around the turn of the millennium, and in 2010 the LEGO Group released the core principles of the method as open source material.
Why was the method created at all?+
Because strategy was thought up by the few and executed by the many. Consultants and a small circle of executives produced plans that the rest of the organisation had to carry out without ever having helped think them through. The method was built to make strategy work something everyone in the room takes part in — and remembers, because they built it themselves.
Is LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® free to use?+
The core principles are published by the LEGO Group under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 3.0), so the material may be used, shared and built upon with attribution and under the same licence. The names LEGO and SERIOUS PLAY are trademarks and may not be used in a way that suggests being part of, or endorsed by, the LEGO Group.
What is the difference between play and LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®?+
Play is the means, not the end. There is always a business question at the centre, a fixed structure — question, build, tell, reflect — and a facilitator holding the room. Participants don't build for fun; they build because the model makes it possible to say something that is hard to state directly.
How do you measure the value?+
We measure three things: how much of the group actually contributed, how many decisions left the room with a named owner and a deadline, and how much of it is still alive 90 days later. We don't promise percentages up front — we measure them in your own programme.
Where can I read the original material?+
The LEGO Group's open source introduction to the method is a freely available PDF. It describes the philosophy, the three core phases and the etiquette around the model. We link to it on this page.
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