What if the future wasn’t something we predicted, but something we built?
In innovation, strategy, and design, we often talk about the future in abstract terms. We discuss trends, emerging technologies, disruptions, and possibilities. But abstract conversations can feel distant, vague, and disconnected from real human experience.
This is where design fiction becomes powerful.
And when combined with LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP), design fiction becomes tangible, collaborative, and deeply imaginative.
Together, they create a compelling method for exploring futures, not just by discussing them, but by physically building them.
What is Design Fiction?
Design fiction is a practice that uses speculative stories, scenarios, artifacts, and prototypes to explore possible futures.
Rather than asking:
“What will happen?”
Design fiction asks:
“What if?”
It creates imagined futures to help us think critically about:
- Emerging technologies
- Human behaviours
- Ethical dilemmas
- Social change
- Organizational transformation
- Outside influences
- Economic forces
The goal is not prediction.
The goal is exploration.
Design fiction helps teams challenge assumptions, surface hidden risks, and imagine possibilities that traditional planning often overlooks.
through discussion alone.
Why LEGO Serious Play Works for Design Fiction
Design fiction thrives on imagination.
LEGO Serious Play makes imagination visible.
This combination is especially powerful because it allows participants to move from:
- Abstract speculation
to - Physical representation
to - Shared narrative
The future becomes something people can literally put on the table.
Making Future Worlds Tangible
One of the biggest challenges in futures work is helping people visualize unfamiliar possibilities.
Words alone can be limiting.
When participants build future environments, systems, products, or experiences with LEGO, those futures become tangible.
A handful of bricks can represent:
- AI-driven workplaces
- Climate-adaptive cities
- Post-consumer economies
- New social rituals
- Human-machine collaboration
Suddenly, future worlds become easier to explore.
Creating Future Artifacts
Design fiction often uses artifacts from the future to spark discussion.
These could include:
- A future product
- A wearable device
- A public service
- A workplace tool
- A household object
- A government policy
- A methodology
LEGO Serious Play enables teams to rapidly prototype these speculative artifacts.
The physical model becomes a “thing from the future.”
And once that artifact exists, richer questions emerge:
- Who uses this?
- Why does it matter?
- What problem does it solve?
- What unintended consequences might appear?
- Why does the world need this?
The conversation shifts from speculation to inquiry.
Building Stories, Not Just Objects
Design fiction is fundamentally narrative-driven.
A future product alone isn’t enough.
It needs context.
Who lives in this future?
What changed?
What tensions exist?
LEGO Serious Play is excellent for storytelling because every model carries a narrative.
Participants can build:
- Characters
- Systems
- Environments
- Interactions
Then connect them into future scenarios.
This transforms workshops into collaborative storyworld-building sessions.
Why This Matters
The future is increasingly complex.
Organizations can no longer rely solely on linear forecasting or traditional strategic planning.
They need tools that help people think creatively, collaboratively, and critically.
Design fiction expands imagination.
LEGO Serious Play gives that imagination form.
Together, they help teams move beyond predictable thinking.
They make futures thinking accessible, engaging, and human.
Final Thought
The future isn’t built through prediction alone.
It is shaped by imagination, experimentation, and dialogue.
LEGO Serious Play and design fiction offer a powerful way to engage with uncertainty—not as something to fear, but as something to explore.
Because sometimes the best way to understand tomorrow…
is to build it today.
