Unleash Your Team's Potential with the Rose, Bud, Thorn Exercise

TL;DR

Boost Team Performance with the Rose, Bud, Thorn Exercise: Identify strengths, weaknesses, and potential opportunities. This simple yet effective exercise promotes brainstorming, team building, and feedback. Download our customizable Miro template and unleash your team's creative potential!

What is the 'Rose, Bud, Thorn'?

Rose, Bud, Thorn is a powerful exercise that can help you and your team to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas of potential. It is a simple yet effective way to brainstorm, team build, or give and receive feedback on a project or idea.

When working on a particular problem or topic, it is essential to understand what is working, what is not, and what has potential. This exercise allows you to collect feedback in three distinct buckets: positive roses, potential buds, and problematic thorns.

Roses are the things that have happened or that you can acknowledge as good. These are the things you are most excited about but want to invest the least in since you're already doing them well. Buds represent a potential opportunity, something that gives you a spark or inspires you in some way. Thorns are the weaknesses or more tricky problems, the areas that either externally have received validation, or your intuition is telling you to focus on them because they're not quite right.

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Here are the three simple steps to conduct the exercise:

Brainstorm
Start by brainstorming various topics you and your team want to focus on. Be sure to stay aligned on your topics throughout the exercise. Begin by filling out a sticky note with a concept or idea you'd like to consider
Cluster by theme
Next, cluster similar ideas together. Create groupings of common themes to examine more closely. This is a great opportunity to use affinity mapping
Examine and discuss
Once the sticky notes have been created and clustered, it's time to discuss each topic with your team and hear alternative perspectives. Start the discussion by picking a theme, then work to rotate the discussion around the group, giving everyone a chance to weigh in.

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To make it even easier for you and your team to conduct a Rose, Bud, Thorn exercise, we've created a customizable Miro template that you can use right away. Simply jump right into the Miro Template and start using the exercise to identify areas of growth and improvement.

Remember, the Rose, Bud, Thorn exercise is all about creating a safe space for your team to have an open and honest discussion about the good, bad, and growth opportunities. Utilize your responses to improve, grow, or keep up the good work on an idea or project.

So, download our PDF worksheet and start using the Rose, Bud, Thorn exercise today to unleash your team's creative potential!

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