Lotus Blossom

WHAT DO YOU NEED?
TYPE OF THE ACTIVITY:
SUGGESTED TIME FOR ACTIVITY:
LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY:

Lotus blossom method is great for producing many ideas of the solution for your challenge and also already for delving into each of the produced ideas and searching for more specific and detailed ways of how to achieve a specific idea.

What can you do?
Focus on the problem and think about possible solutions following sequential steps:

  • Get a lotus blossom template or create one 3×3 square (known as blossom) in the middle of your sheet and eight independent 3×3 squares (blossoms) around a central blossom, not touching it.
  • Put your initial problem in the central box of your central blossom.
  • Brainstorm components, solutions or themes, related to this problem, and put them in the boxes surrounding the central box.
  • These eight ideas from the surrounding boxes should now be used as the centers of eight outer blossoms.
  • Now that every outer blossom has its own central concept/idea, that can be better understood and broken down, brainstorm further components, solutions or themes, related to this outer centers, and put them in the boxes surrounding outer centers.

Try to complete all of the blossoms (fill all the empty squares and boxes) to maximize ideas. If you exhausted all the ideas and you are satisfied with the outcome, you can finish earlier.

If you find concepts in the lotus blossoms that need to be further broken down, you can add new squares (blossoms) with these concepts as the centers and continue the process.

At the end, you can assess and eliminate collected ideas based on their suitability, practicality, financial perspective, feasibility…

For more information about lotus blossoms here and here.

Example Template