Lotus+Blossom+Technique

The Lotus Blossom allows users to organize their thinking around loosely-connected themes; by doing so you can imagine alternative possibilities and explanations that otherwise might have been ignored. The Lotus Blossom was created by Yasuo Matsumura of Clover Management Research in Chiba City, Japan. This technique calls for you to start with a central subject and expand that subject into themes and sub-themes, each with separate entry points. In Lotus Blossom, the petals around the core of the blossom are figuratively "peeled back" one at a time, revealing a key component or theme. This approach is pursued in ever-widening circles until the subject or opportunity is comprehensively explored. The cluster of themes and surrounding ideas and applications, which are developed in one way or another, provide several different alternative possibilities. The guidelines for Lotus Blossom are:


 * 1) Write the central problem in the center of the diagram.
 * 2) Write the significant themes, components or dimensions of your subject in the surrounding circles labeled A to H surrounding the central theme. List The optimal number of themes for a manageable diagram is between six and eight. If you have more than eight, make additional diagrams. Ask questions like: What are my specific objectives? What are the constants in my problem? If my subject were a book, what would the chapter headings be? What are the dimensions of my problem?
 * 3) Use the ideas written in the circles as the central themes for the surrounding lotus blossom petals or boxes. Thus, the idea or application you wrote in Circle A would become the central theme for the lower middle box A. It now becomes the basis for generating eight new ideas or applications.
 * 4) Continue the process until the lotus blossom diagram is completed.

The typical Lotus Blossom is a 9x9 matrix (like a sudoku puzzle), except that each 3x3 block focuses on attributes and sub-attributes related to the main subject. When you draw Lotus Blossoms on white board, you can frequently find cause-and-effect relationships between different sub-themes. For example, Facebook's challenge to grow revenues and use its proprietary platform technology could be assisted by intermediating third-party content, such as Netflix videos or other digital content, through the social networks on Facebook.

Read more: Michael Michalko on the lotus blossom

An example of a Lotus Blossom diagram from Michael Michalko