LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®: Building Different Perspectives on Complex Problems
How LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® helps us explore complex problems
Sometimes, the best way to think through a difficult problem is to build it.
LEGO has always been something I have been fond of. Like many people, I enjoyed it as a child. Then, as other interests and responsibilities took over, it gradually disappeared into the background.
One of the unexpected joys of having children was the opportunity to rediscover LEGO. Initially, this meant rediscovering the simple pleasure of building something, taking it apart and building something different. Over time, however, LEGO also became a useful way for us to communicate, reflect and think through problems.
In our family, we regularly use LEGO to explore an issue or challenge and work out how we might respond to it. We use it with our children as much as we do as adults. Whether its a sticky issue at school, or a strategic work discussion, LEGO never fails us!
Building a model can help make something visible that may otherwise be difficult to describe. It can create a focal point for a conversation, provide a different way of expressing thoughts and help people explain how they see a situation.
That experience reflects one of the central ideas behind LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®: sometimes, the best way to think through a difficult problem is to build it.
What is LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®?
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is a facilitated methodology through which participants use LEGO bricks to build models representing their ideas, experiences, perceptions or understanding of a particular question.
The methodology originated in 1996, when professors Johan Roos and Bart Victor, together with LEGO Group owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, explored alternative approaches to strategic planning. The method used three-dimensional models to represent business issues and challenges.
Despite the name, it is not simply about introducing play into a workshop or making a meeting feel more creative. The building activity has a serious purpose. It helps people make their thinking tangible, explore complexity and communicate ideas that may be difficult to express using words alone.
Academic discussion describes the methodology as grounded in constructivist and constructionist theories. Tactile model-building, metaphor and explanation can support reflection, dialogue, meaning-making and the integration of different perspectives. The model is therefore not the final product. It is a vehicle for thinking, discussion and learning.
How does the process work?
The process usually starts with a question that requires thought rather than an immediate factual answer. Depending on the question and those involved, it may be approached as an individual activity, a team exercise or a combination of the two.
The emphasis is not on artistic or technical ability. It is the meaning assigned to the model that matters. Instead of discussing a complex issue only at an abstract level, participants can point to elements, move components, introduce new factors and demonstrate relationships.
Making complex problems visible
Many organisational problems are difficult to understand because they are not linear. They involve multiple teams, competing priorities, formal processes, informal practices, resource constraints, professional boundaries and different interpretations of what is happening.
Traditional meetings can struggle to accommodate this complexity. The most confident or senior voices may dominate, and a group may move towards solutions before developing a shared understanding of the problem.
A physical model provides another way to communicate. A wall might represent a barrier, a bridge an important connection, interlocking components a dependency, an unstable structure fragility, or a missing piece an information or capability gap.
The meaning comes from the builder’s explanation, not from an interpretation imposed by others.
Supporting patient safety, PSIRF and human factors
At Promethean Human Designs we use this approach within our work on patient safety, PSIRF, human factors and organisational learning.
Our wider patient safety training helps healthcare organisations build practical capability, while our dedicated PSIRF training and human factors education provide further routes into systems-based learning and improvement.
Patient safety challenges rarely arise from one action, one decision or one person. They emerge through interactions between people, tasks, technology, environments, organisational arrangements and wider systems. Model-building can help participants represent those interactions and explore how work is actually performed.
This is particularly valuable when participants hold different pieces of the picture. The objective is not to force those perspectives into one simplified account, but to understand how they relate and what they collectively reveal about the system.
Applying the approach to governance and strategy
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® can also support governance and transformation work, including strategy workshops, board and committee development, service improvement and organisational change.
Words such as strategy, culture, accountability and effective governance are used frequently, but people may attach different meanings to them. Asking people to build what effective governance looks and feels like can reveal unclear responsibilities, barriers to escalation, gaps between formal governance and operational practice, competing interpretations of risk and assumptions that have not previously been discussed.
In strategy work, the approach can help a team explore its current position, describe its desired future and understand what must change. Each person has an opportunity to build and explain a perspective before the group develops a shared model.
Creating space for reflection through coaching and mentoring
We also use model-building approaches within coaching and mentoring. People may arrive with frustration, uncertainty or a feeling of being stuck, without yet being able to explain the underlying issue.
Building a representation can externalise the problem. The person can consider where they have placed themselves, what appears close or distant, which barriers seem fixed, what resources are available and what might be missing.
Questions such as “What would you change first?”, “What happens if this barrier is moved?” and “What is within your control or influence?” can support reflection. The process does not give someone an answer. It helps them gain a new perspective, identify options and decide what to do next.
Part of a wider toolkit
We do not use LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® in isolation. No single method can provide a complete understanding of a complex organisational problem. We combine model-building with approaches from human factors, systems thinking, patient safety, governance, investigation, improvement and organisational development. Depending on the challenge, this may include process exploration, work-system analysis, barriers and controls, performance-influencing factors, stakeholder perspectives and testing assumptions behind proposed solutions.
The method contributes a powerful visual, tactile and reflective dimension. It is selected when it can help participants think differently and improve the quality of understanding, not simply because it is engaging.
From insight to action
A successful session should not end with an interesting collection of models on a table. Reflection matters, but it must ultimately lead somewhere.
· What do we now understand differently?
· Which assumptions have been challenged?
· What requires further investigation?
· Which barriers need to be addressed?
· What decisions are needed, who should be involved and what actions will follow?
The models may be photographed or documented to preserve learning, but the real outputs are the insight, direction and commitments created through the process. Participants should leave with greater clarity and realistic next steps.
Why I am using it more frequently
I have been using versions of this approach for around ten years. I have seen how it can change the quality of a conversation by helping people slow down, examine their thinking and listen more carefully to how others understand the same situation.
I am using it more frequently because of its positive impact on thinking and learning. It is particularly valuable when a problem is complex, previous discussions have become repetitive, a team lacks shared understanding, different professional perspectives need to be explored, or conventional meetings are not generating new insight.
There is something fundamentally human about building. Creating a physical representation encourages us to engage with a problem differently, prompts questions and makes room for perspectives that might otherwise remain unspoken.
Could building the problem help you solve it?
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® has been developing for more than 20 years. Used well, it can help individuals, teams and organisations make complex issues visible, examine different perspectives and turn reflection into purposeful action.
At Promethean Human Designs, we use it within PSIRF and patient safety sessions, human factors work, governance and organisational learning, strategy workshops, coaching and mentoring, and team and service development.
If your organisation or team is working through a complex challenge and conventional discussion is not unlocking it, contact Promethean Human Designs to discuss how LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® could support reflection, shared understanding and practical action.
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