LEGO® Serious Play®
Facilitator Manual
Building shared understanding through hands, models, and stories.
Building shared understanding through hands, models, and stories.
The 4 Steps · Flow · Practical Setup · Translation Guide
Tower · Bridge · Metaphor · Storytelling — 30–45 min
Individual · Shared · Landscape · Connections · System
System Scenarios · Decisions · Simple Rules
Culture · Leadership · Service · Quality · Innovation · Change
Everything you need before every session
The foundations that make LEGO® Serious Play® work — every time.
Your role as facilitator is to guide all participants through every step, every time.
Make the question open, simple, and clear. Explain what's expected in steps 1 and 2 before participants begin.
Ensure no one gets stuck. Provide technical support freely. Trust that hands know more than the conscious mind.
Every participant tells their own story — 100% participation, no exceptions. Ask about the model, never the person.
Participants may ask clarifying questions and discuss new insights. Highlight key learning points and patterns.
100% participation — every voice, every time.
In most meetings, 20% of participants generate 80% of the ideas. The remaining 80% are mentally present but practically absent. LSP breaks this pattern by requiring every participant to build and share — there is no observer role.
Research shows that engaging the hands activates parts of the brain not accessible through verbal conversation alone. Building with LEGO® allows participants to express knowledge, experience and ideas that they struggle to put into words.
The model is the messenger. When you ask about the model — not the person — you create psychological safety. People can explore and share ideas through their creation without feeling personally judged.
LSP keeps participants in the Flow Zone by combining physical building with meaningful reflection.
Boredom. Under-challenged. Participants drift. Questions feel trivial or repetitive. Building becomes mechanical with no genuine discovery.
Engaged. Learning. Building. The task is challenging enough to require real thought but achievable enough to avoid frustration. This is where insight happens.
Anxiety. Over-challenged. Participants freeze or disengage. Questions are too abstract or unfamiliar. The 4-step process loses its safety net.
Adjust difficulty by changing question complexity, not time limits. A concrete question ("Build your role") is easier than an abstract one ("Build the future of your organisation"). Move from concrete to abstract as competency builds.
The physical environment matters. Set it up thoughtfully before anyone arrives.
Every participant must have the same set. Differences in available pieces create inequality — participants with fewer or less interesting pieces feel disadvantaged from the start. This undermines the fundamental premise of equal participation.
How to reframe participant statements into LSP language.
Three warm-up exercises that train participants to build, give meaning, and tell stories — 30–45 min combined.
Always run all three before any application technique. Do not skip. Each builds a different core skill.
Skill: Basic building confidence
Duration: 5–8 min
Participants discover that their hands know more than they think. The first model anyone builds breaks the fear of not being creative enough.
Skill: Metaphorical thinking
Duration: 8–10 min
Moving beyond literal to metaphorical — the bridge doesn't need to look like a bridge. It just needs to mean bridge. This unlocks abstraction.
Skill: Personal meaning-making
Duration: 10–15 min
Participants build something personal and abstract. The model becomes a vehicle for sharing experience that would be hard to express in words.
Learning to build — discovering that hands know more than we think.
Moving from literal to metaphorical — the bridge between where you are and where you want to be.
Deep metaphor — building the invisible made visible.
Combining models into a shared narrative — the first step toward collective meaning.
Seven techniques that build on each other — always starting with Individual Model Building.
These 7 techniques form a natural arc from individual to collective understanding. Individual Model Building must ALWAYS come first.
Individual model building must ALWAYS come first — before any shared or landscape work. Every participant must have built their own model before any consolidation begins. This ensures equal contribution to the final shared model.
Always first · Foundation technique
Each participant builds their own model responding to the same question. This is the core of LSP — 100% participation, 100% of the time. No one can opt out.
After Tower/Bridge/Metaphor exercises only. Every subsequent technique builds from individual models outward.
After individual models · Common solution
The group negotiates a single shared model by integrating elements from individual models. The process of deciding what stays, what goes, and why is where the real learning happens.
No facilitator input on content — only process guidance.
After individual builds · Parallel models
Individual models are placed on a shared table but kept intact — each one represents a perspective within a larger landscape. Originals remain; the landscape shows diversity.
Find the interfaces: where do models touch? Where are the gaps?
After landscape · 4 types
Participants add physical connections between models using strings, cables, or tubes. The type of connection matters — each type tells a different story about the relationship.
After connections · See relations
The landscape becomes a system. Participants identify which elements are central, which are peripheral, and what happens when one element changes. Visualise complexity.
Pull a string: what moves? What stays? That's your system map.
After system · What-if testing
Participants introduce external factors as new models and explore how the system responds. What-if testing makes future possibilities tangible and discussable.
Add a "disruption brick." What cascades?
Final synthesis · Guiding principles
From the full session, the group distils 3–5 simple rules — short, memorable principles that guide decisions in uncertain situations. The most powerful outcome of any LSP session.
Active, open, interpretable — never prescriptive commands.
The type of connection between models reveals the nature of the relationship. Each type carries specific meaning.
A solid, direct link. Change one — change the other. These relationships are robust and reliable. Represented by thick, taught strings or solid connectors.
A loose, flexible link. Influence without dependency. These relationships bend without breaking. Represented by loose strings or elastic connectors.
Exists but could break. These relationships are at risk — perhaps under stress, or dependent on conditions that may change. Represented by thin strings barely touching.
The connection that should exist but doesn't — or is actively blocked. Making this visible is often the most powerful moment in the entire session.
When connections are added, the landscape becomes a system. The facilitator's job is to help the group see what the system is telling them.
Testing the future and distilling principles — the most strategic LSP techniques.
Introduce external factors and watch how the system responds. Scenarios make the future tangible — and discussable — before it arrives.
Complete the full individual → shared → landscape → connections → system sequence first. The system must exist before you can test it.
Add a new model representing an external factor: a competitor, a regulation, a technology disruption, or an opportunity. Place it near the system.
Move the factor model into the system. What changes? Which connections break? Which strengthen? The group narrates the scenario as it unfolds.
Ask: "How does the system respond?" Each element (person/team) says what they would do. Build new models to represent responses if needed.
What decisions must be made? Who makes them? What information is needed? Capture these on sticky notes or paper beside the model.
Run 2–3 different scenarios with the same system. The power is in comparison — what decisions appear across all scenarios? Those are robust decisions.
The best scenarios are ones that challenge the group's current assumptions. If everyone agrees on how the system will respond, the scenario is too familiar. Push toward edge cases and unlikely-but-possible futures.
Short, memorable principles that guide everyday decisions — especially when the unexpected happens.
Easy to remember. Can be recalled and applied immediately in any situation. If you can't say it in under 10 words, it's not simple enough.
Allow for contextual judgment and flexibility in how they are applied. Simple rules guide — they don't dictate. Each person applies them in their own situation.
They guide behaviour — they inspire action, not compliance. Start with a verb: "Listen first", "Build small, test fast", "Protect what matters most."
Not rules or instructions. They leave room for individual judgment and creativity. The difference between a principle and a rule is that you can break a rule — a principle guides even when broken.
Explain purpose → Play scenarios → Build what you learned → Share → Each person formulates their own rule → Write up → Select the most important 3–5 rules as a group → These become your team's operating principles.
Simple rules are most powerful when co-created by the group during a session — not imported from above. Rules that participants build themselves are rules they actually follow.
Example build questions for six common organisational challenges.
These questions are starting points. Adapt them to your specific context — the more concrete and specific, the better the build.
The best questions are: (1) Open enough to allow diverse interpretations, (2) Specific enough to anchor to a real challenge, (3) Grounded in experience rather than abstraction, (4) Brief — one sentence maximum. Test your question by asking: "Could someone build 10 completely different models all answering this question honestly?" If yes, it's a good question.
Use this checklist every time — without exception.
These aren't suggestions. Each item exists because something went wrong without it.