Rose, Thorn, Bud is a technique for identifying things as positive, negative, or having potential.
Ever feel you’re too close to a project to see what’s working, what’s not working, and where to take your next steps?
It happens to every team at some point. But this “can’t see the wood for the trees” paradox is easily solved, with a Design Thinking activity called Rose, Thorn, Bud.
This exercise is one of several, that can help you establish a feedback loop back to you as a coach/leader/facilitator. Feedback, which everyone will learn from.
The purpose of Rose, Bud, Thorn is to:
- Acknowledge strengths and weaknesses — putting measures in place to do more of what’s going well, and fix what needs fixing.
- Inspire ideation and debate within teams — discussing Buds can encourage new, innovative ideas to come to the fore.
- Gaining insight from all members of the team — even those who would usually shy away from giving their input.
Click the button below to open a Miro board template of this exercise. Go ahead and make a copy for yourself when you need this exercise. Fill in the focus area of the exercise for your particular session and go ahead inviting your participants.
This is equally impactful done online as well as offline using paper-post-its.
Other resources that explains this exercise:
https://designsprintkit.withgoogle.com/methodology/phase1-understand/rose-thorn-bud