Lego MVP Warm-up

As Product Designers we build MVPs often. To help get into the mindset of "minimum and viable" I like to play a game with a couple people that forces prioritization. This game is based off of Christoph Neiman’s I LEGO NY work. The point — use as few legos as possible to communicate an idea.

Outcome

Needs

• Legos (variety box of classic legos is ideal)
• Paper
• Solid container (hat, bucket, etc)
• 2+ people

Pre-Game

• Everybody privately writes 3-5 nouns on a piece of paper
• Fold each piece of paper and put them into the container.
• Pour the legos on the table in the center of everyone.

Rules

Selecting what to build:

• Each person picks an equal number of pieces of paper from the hat.
• Each person blindly chooses one of the pieces of paper they have.

Building:

• Maximum of 10 pieces can be used.
• For 4 minutes, everybody builds the thing they’ve chosen.

Presenting and guessing:

• Start with any person, they present their piece. They cannot talk.
• Go around the table clockwise, one person at a time, guessing what the piece is.
• If someone gets it right, the game stops.
• Once everyone has guessed the game stops.

*Note - if you think the person built what you added to the hat, don’t guess.

Scoring

• If your presentation was guessed correctly by anyone, you get points.
• If you guess the presentation, you get points.