REFLECTION – MIIND MAPPING

Challenge

I am a fresher who has just completed his graduate degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. I have  been working in an IT giant as team member of a Progressive innovation Team of our firm. Our firm was  working on something BIG and something new (which I cannot disclose due to corporation policies), which  was ready to roll out in market. And I, was asked to give a presentation of this Big Idea about its process  flow and on how well has my team analyzed the market and our competitors, to my project Manager and  our firm’s different chapter leaders. So, this was my challenge.

Selection

I have gone through several design thinking activities/tools, so I was ready to test the mind mapping tool.  Mind Mapping tool enhances your vision about the problem statement giving many different and unique  questions that are to be entertained, so that you get a broader picture about the problem.

Application

So, there are two different mind maps that I have come up with, first one to make a presentation and  second one being about process flow that lead to the BIG idea.

The first one: In order to make a quick and an efficient presentation, I figured out four branches to my  presentation, which were Audience, Delivery, Visual and Topic. Basically, my target audience is my team  members, our project lead and different chapter leaders. It was very important, to stick to the point of  our Idea, and not blabber much. I must put up Goals, also as they were on a bigger level same for me and  my manager, which was to pursue clients and funding for this idea. Delivery included different examples  regarding the already present technology and their analysis, the Length of the presentation also mattered.  Visual included different visual aids during my presentation which were like code snippets, different  photographs of where all our technology could be employed, different logos of our target clients and  Small videos regarding the working of tech as an end to end application. At last topic included the basic  flow of my presentation like intro, summary, Figures and Overall PPT.

The Second One: Process flow for the BIG idea, included analyzing many different things like Team Work,  Current Market, Costs, Marketing and Target Audience. Team Work included, which role is to be assigned  to each team member and how evenly the work must be divided. Current Market included answering  questions like What is already available in the market, what already does well and How this idea is better  than what is currently available. Costs included different employee overheads, third party development  quotations, cost for marketing. Marketing depended on the audience, and the spreading the news about  the project on social media. Audience included our target audience/Clients for which the product is  developed.

Insight

By applying mind-mapping tool, me and my teammates easily identified different reasons or priorities for  the big idea, and I was able to easily deliver a time managed and an efficient presentation to my chapter  leads and my project manager. Mind Mapping tool helped me and my team, to carry out the process flow

without facing any problem. And, it also helped us out with deep analysis for the different aspects of the  project like Marketing and Target audience.

Approach

Since I discovered that the most valuable aspect is the shared insights and learning, next time I would use  the mind mapping tool as starting point for any design thinking activity, as it gives insights about what all  points are to be covered to start with any project, and also do regressive thinking for analysis on the  insights.

