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Lean Lego Game
Lean Lego Game
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After revolutionizing the automobile industry, Lean principles have been applied across industries. However,
many people haven’t been introduced to the concepts that make Lean successful.
One of the best ways to introduce people to new concepts is through a hands-on, team experience. Better
yet, a game! (Speaking of games, be sure to check out the beer distribution game!)
In this interactive session, participants work in a small Lego production line, experiencing its problems
and applying Lean practices to overcome them. Up to 24 participants, divided into four teams, will learn
about:
systems thinking, push vs. pull systems, waste, and more. A production line scenario will also be compared
with the software development industry, analyzing their similarities and differences.
Below you will find the instructions for the facilitators and teams, specifications for building bricks and
houses, and presentations (short and long options).
Facilitator Instructions
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Overview
This workshop was designed to demonstrate some Lean practices in an imaginary production line to build
Lego houses.
Agendas
Lean Lego Game: Agenda for Short Game (1 hour and 30 minutes)
Elapsed Time
Description Duration (minutes)
(hours:minutes)
Introduction 0:10 0:10
Iteration 1 – hands-on 0:10 0:20
Debrief – retrospective 1 (waste, push vs. pull, kanban) 0:20 0:40
Iteration 2 – hands-on 0:10 0:50
Debrief – retrospective 2 (unlevelled process, systems
0:20 1:10
thinking, work cells)
Iteration 3 – hands-on 0:10 1:20
Conclusion (Kaizen, Lean in software development) 0:10 1:30
Lean Lego Game: Agenda for Long Game (3 hours)
Elapsed Time
Description Duration (minutes)
(hours:minutes)
Introduction 0:20 0:20
Iteration 1 – hands-on 0:15 0:35
Debrief – retrospective 1 (waste, push vs. pull, kanban) 0:20 0:55
Iteration 2 – hands-on 0:15 1:10
Debrief – retrospective 2 (unlevelled process, systems
0:20 1:30
thinking, work cells)
Break
Iteration 3 – hands-on 0:15 1:45
Debrief – retrospective 3 (yatai) 0:20 2:15
Group activity (Kaizen, improving the process) 0:15 2:30
Iteration 4 – hands-on 0:20 2:50
Conclusion (Lean in software development) 0:10 3:00
Pre-Workshop Preparation
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Color cards to represent market demand
Index cards:
Label for each inventory (A, B, C, D, E)
Different colors to help organize inventories B, C, and D
Flip chart and sharpies (or the equivalent), projector, and slides
A countdown alarm
Lego bricks:
Sizes:
1×4
2×2
2×3
2×4
2×6
Colors:
White
Yellow
Red
Blue
Inventories setup:
A: Bucket of Lego bricks
B: A bunch of pieces of each color
C: A bunch of pieces of each color, grouped by size
D: One set of bricks to build a house
E: Nothing
Tables setup:
Introduction
The initial slides give a brief introduction to the workshop and Lean. You should cover the following topics:
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Talk about why you are here
Give an overview of the session and its objectives
Check to make sure the audience is on the expected experience level (beginners and intermediate
who have heard about Lean but never practiced or researched about it)
Explain a little bit about Lean (and why it is important)
Split the participants as evenly as possible in four teams
Team Roles
You are the CEO of a company who decided to build and sell Lego houses.
Your company follow a standardized (certified) process, and you expect them to follow it to be
successful.
Each Lego brick costs $1.00 and each house will be sold for $25.00 (16 pieces to build a house, so a
profit of $9 per house).
Each team has their own standardized procedures (instructions should be on the tables)
The first hands‐on exercise represents a push system. The teams will perform four rounds of 30/40 seconds
(short/long version) and you should:
Debrief 1
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Conduct a quick retrospective to look at what went well and what could be improved. The next slides will
cover the following topics:
The problem of waste and the amount of unused pieces in the inventories (over/under production and
work-in-process [WIP])
Demonstrate where waste is piling up in the inventories
The 7 wastes of manufacturing
Show the differences between push and pull systems:
Push: predict market demand, economies of scale (the more you produce, the more you will
sell). Doesn’t cope with variation
Pull: triggered by customer demand, produce only when something is consumed. Cope with
variation
Talk about kanban and how it helps you limit WIP.
It’s a physical device that signals demand.
Explain how the production line will be redesigned to work in a pull system to limit the WIP (waste):
Each inventory will have a minimum buffer (see below).
The customer demand (color card) will be drawn at the beginning of each round (pull is driven by
customer demand).
The last team should take the set from the chosen color to build that house.
The empty space on inventory “D” is the signal to what Team 3 should produce (just enough to
fill the gap).
And so on . . .
Inventories setup (should be replaced by one of the facilitators during this debrief)
A: Bucket of Lego bricks
B: One set of each color
C: One set of each color
D: One set of each color
E: Nothing
The second hands‐on exercise represents a pull system. The teams will perform four rounds of 30/40
seconds (short/long version) and you should:
Draw a color card at the beginning of each round. Take care to show it only to Team 4, to avoid the
other teams hearing the demand and to reinforce the pull scheduling.
Keep track of the inventories’ size throughout the rounds on the flipchart.
Keep track of how many houses were built and if the market bought them or not.
Show the motivational slides and keep trying to motivate them.
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Some teams will be doing nothing, waiting for the signal
Team 4 will be working full‐time and should be able to deliver an average of one house per round (may
take two rounds sometimes)
Debrief 2
Conduct a quick retrospective to discuss what went well and what could be improved. The next slides will
cover the following topics:
Raise the problem of an unlevelled process (some people working full time while others are waiting)
Talk about possible solutions (e.g., put more people on the constraint step, and leave fewer people on
the waiting steps)
Talk about systems thinking in this scenario: the whole process is setup to fail (redundant steps,
unnecessary steps, overlapping tasks, etc.)
What is the purpose of the system? Is having four teams necessary from that perspective?
Talk about a work cell in Lean:
The same person does the job of more than one person
Talk about the balance between highly specialized (and prescribed) tasks, versus a more
generalized skill to do more than one process step
Talk about the concept of one-piece flow
Explain how the production line will be redesigned to work in a work cell:
Each person will be assigned a house to build (will be given a color card each)
They should raise their hands as soon as a house is finished
Inventories setup (should be replaced by one of the facilitators during this debrief):
No more inventory tables
A pile of Lego bricks on each table
Distribute one instruction sheet to each participant and give them some time to read/understand
it
Optionally, distribute the members of Team 4 among the other teams to spread house‐building
knowledge
The third hands‐on exercise represents a work cell. Each person will build a house and you should:
Members of the last team should finish faster than others (more knowledge about building houses)
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First house should be delivered within the first minute
Some people might not finish
Debrief 3
Conduct a quick retrospective to discuss what went well and what could be improved. The next slides will
cover the following topics:
Talk about how changes may take a while to take effect (took more time on the last exercise because a
lot of
people never had built a house)
Talk about Kaizen and continuous improvement (respect people, inspect and adapt)
If you’re running the short version of the workshop, go to the conclusion. Otherwise, introduce the final
activity:
Ask the groups to discuss for 10 minutes and come up with their own process to build houses.
They are allowed to setup initial buffers as they wish.
They can organize themselves however they think is most efficient.
The final exercise represents the team’s process. Teams will perform one at a time in rounds of 2:00/2:40
minutes (short/long version) and you should:
Allow each team to setup their initial buffers before starting the countdown clock
Allow the other teams to gather around the team who will be performing
Draw at least one color card at the beginning of each round. Allow the team to ask you for more cards
(they might be building more than one house at a time).
Keep track of how long an order takes to be fulfilled (if there are many cards being asked, and no
houses delivered, for instance).
Keep track of how many houses were built.
Keep track of how many pieces were left on the table at the end of the round
Be aware of the peculiarities of the processes developed by each team.
After all rounds, allow each team to explain how their processes work and what they would change if
they could play another round.
Some teams will deliver a lot of houses, while others might deliver just a few.
The teams will want to run another round to improve their process (and incorporate things learned from
seeing the other teams performing). Allow them to do it if time permits.
Expect surprises! Teams can come up with extremely clever processes and performance may vary
between them.
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Another idea would be to conduct the first round with all teams performing at the same time (so they
can gather data/feedback from their own experiences), and only then run the next round one team at a
time.
Conclusion
If you performed Iteration 4 (long version), conduct a quick review to discuss what went well and what
could be improved. Run through the final slides to talk about:
Talk about the difference between applying practices and understanding principles (kanban helped limit WIP,
but in this case there was a systemic problem on the whole process).
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Note for all teams: Be as productive as you can. Remember that your team depends on you!
Team 1
1. Walk to A
2. Grab a handful of Lego bricks
3. Take the bricks to your table
4. Sort them by color
5. Store the sorted bricks by color on B
6. Repeat
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Team 2
1. Walk to B
2. Grab a handful of Lego bricks
3. Take the bricks to your table
4. Sort them by color and size
5. Store the sorted bricks by color and size on C
6. Repeat
Team 3
1. Walk to C
2. Take enough bricks of one color to fulfil the specification
3. Store the sorted bricks on D
4. Repeat
Team 4
1. Walk to D
2. Grab one set of bricks
3. Take the bricks to your table
4. Build a house according to the specification
5. Launch the house to market on E
6. Repeat
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Short
Long
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Bricks
Houses
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These materials were originally published here and are published here via a Creative Commons Attribution-
Non-Commercial license.
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