Lotus Diagram Template
Visualize themes and explore alternative paths with a Lotus Diagram Template. Innovate when brainstorming and sharing ideas.
About the Lotus Diagram Template
The Lotus Diagram Template is a creative-thinking technique, also known as the "lotus blossom technique.” Proposed by Michael Michalko, it helps you expand your thinking beyond your usual paths. The lotus blossom technique focuses the power of brainstorming on areas of interest by using a visual representation of an idea. It is similar to mind-mapping (but more structured) and pushes you in ways you don’t find in classic mind-mapping.
What is a Lotus Diagram?
A Lotus Diagram is a brainstorming and organization tool. It helps define key concepts or parts of a broader picture. The center of the diagram represents the main idea, with eight surrounding boxes representing additional concepts.
Brainstorming can be a frustrating experience. Sometimes, your team comes in with a thousand ideas they’re ready to share. Other times, the well runs dry. A Lotus Diagram can empower you to run smoother, more effective brainstorming sessions. Use this Lotus Diagram Template to visualize themes and explore alternative paths.
How to use a Lotus Diagram Template
Start with a central idea or theme, and then expand outwards with solution areas or related themes in an iterative manner. The technique encourages you to have a fully fleshed-out idea space before considering the idea completed.
What are the benefits of using Lotus Diagrams?
Many teams benefit from using a Lotus Diagram Template, mainly because it gives a twist to a regular brainstorming session. Here are a few advantages of using the lotus diagram:
1. Have better brainstorming sessions
Lotus Diagrams encourage lateral thinking. If people get stuck, you can return to the diagram to generate ideas that might be tangentially related to your main topic.
2. Promote logical thinking
In using a Lotus Diagram, you’re constantly filing topics according to their relationship to the main topic. That makes it a helpful tool for keeping your meetings focused and on task.
3. Foster creativity
A Lotus Diagram encourages you to ask critical, incisive questions about the main topic, generating new ideas for discussion.
4. Break down complex ideas
Lotus Diagrams can be useful for discussing complex topics with many moving parts. By uncovering related ideas, you can better understand the main idea at the center of the diagram.
Getting started with Miro's Lotus Diagram Template
When you use Miro to create the Lotus Diagram, you can:
Have endless space for your collaboration. Brainstorm ideas with your distributed teammates as if you were all in one room, and engage everyone in front of your online whiteboard to ideate and discuss all topics together.
Customize and fill out the Lotus Diagram template as you go along. Change colors and add sticky notes and arrows to experiment with different ideas.
Upload documents and images to make your collaboration and ideation session more visual and vivid.
Save your completed Lotus Diagram in .JPEG or .PDF to always have it ready to view.
Get started with this template right now.
BCG Matrix Template
Works best for:
Strategic Planning
Use the BCG matrix template to make informed and strategic decisions about growth opportunities for your business. Assign your portfolio of products to different areas within the matrix (cash cows, dogs, question marks, stars) to prioritize where you should invest your time and money to see the best results.
Product Positioning Template
Works best for:
Marketing, Product Management, Desk Research
For better or for worse, your company’s chances for success hinge partially on your market. As such, before you start building products and planning strategies, it’s a good idea to conduct a product positioning exercise. A product positioning exercise is designed to situate your company and your offering within a market. The product positioning template guides you to consider key topics such as defining your product and market category, identifying your target segment and competitors, and understanding your key benefits and differentiation.
Ansoff Matrix Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Operations, Strategic Planning
Keep growing. Keep scaling. Keep finding those new opportunities in new markets—and creative new ways to reach customers there. Sound like your approach? Then this template might be a great fit. An Ansoff Matrix (aka, a product or market expansion grid) is broken into four potential growth strategies: Market Penetration, Market Development, Product Development, and Diversification. When you go through each section with your team, you’ll get a clear view of your options going forward and the potential risks and rewards of each.
Job Map Template
Works best for:
Design, Desk Research, Mapping
Want to truly understand your consumers’ mindset? Take a look at things from their perspective — by identifying the “jobs” they need to accomplish and exploring what would make them “hire” or “fire” a product or service like yours. Ideal for UX researchers, job mapping is a staged process that gives you that POV by breaking the “jobs” down step by step, so you can ultimately offer something unique, useful, and different from your competitors. This template makes it easy to create a detailed, comprehensive job map.
Design Research Template
Works best for:
UX Design, Design Thinking, Desk Research
A design research map is a grid framework showing the relationship between two key intersections in research methodologies: mindset and approach. Design research maps encourage your team or clients to develop new business strategies using generative design thinking. Originally designed by academic Liz Sanders, the framework is meant to resolve confusion or overlap between research and design methods. Whether your team is in problem-solving or problem space definition mode, using a research design template can help you consider the collective value of many unrelated practices.
Low-fidelity Wireframes Template
Works best for:
Desk Research, Product Management, Wireframes
When you’re designing a site or building an app, the early stages should be BIG — seeing the big picture and communicating the big idea. Low fidelity wireframes empower you to see it and do it. These rough layouts (think of them as the digital version of a sketch on a napkin) help your teams and project stakeholders quickly determine if a design meeting meets your users’ needs. Our template lets you easily use wireframes during meetings or workshops, presentations, and critique sessions.