Reflection - Mind Mapping

Challenge & Selection  A tool that I inevitably use constantly in my professional life is Mind Mapping. I work with  different stakeholders, always aiming towards a specific direction but trying to address both my  organization’s as well as their own needs and desires. I co-founded a non-profit organization, Kasikornbank PLC Program, with the mission to integrate Design Thinking in the public high school  education of Puerto Rico. Apart from teaching Design Thinking daily, my team and I practice the  method as well as its accompanied mindsets when addressing our stakeholders, trying to invite  them to voluntarily participate and offer classes in the program we implement at the schools.  Mind Mapping helps me organize the information from my first interactions with potential  partners, as well as the interviews with existing stakeholders, and empathy exercises with  students. I use a technique I call​ The Olympic Podium​, as it is a three step approach to “sealing  the deal” with partners, and it consists of empathy notes that are turned into insights through  mind mapping and are finally embedded into a set of criteria we are ready to start working with.     Application  The whole process usually initiates with a simple introduction to a potential partner, that soon  turns into a conversation picking at questions like ​“what does your program aim to do?”​ and  “what do you offer and how?” ​exchanging examples and stories of student and teacher  experiences . After the first impression has been made, I leave my information and immediately  send an email delineating all topics discussed and a suggested new date to meet. Now it is time  for mind mapping which, according to Megan Elizabeth, “provides a segway from ​what is ​to ​what  if.”​ My team and I come together and break down this new puzzle piece into four sections: what  the person/people said, did, felt, and thought, not just in our conversation, but also in the stories  they provided.    Once we are able to narrow down to the insights we see where and if they match with what our  organization looks to offer. Our organization consists of three main parts: Mentorship, Design  Labs, and Exploration classes with community volunteers; we have enough bandwidth to  include people from very distinct backgrounds, but it is important to set criteria so we don’t  spread ourselves too thin and end up giving in to all the great possibilities, ending up  implementing none. So we set the criteria in order to optimize ​leverage ​in our collaboration, and  present them in our second meeting. By that time, we are able to start ideating what the new  projects will look like.      Insight and Approach  Just like Joy describes in the class, mind mapping can help us avoid lethargic processes as  it brings us one step closer to creating a “common ground” (criteria) in our communication,  despite our different backgrounds in culture, professional experience, age etc; we are free to  start bringing edgy ideas to the table without hesitation, since everyone is on the same page.

The only thing we have to worry about by that point is the prioritization of the ideas that in fact  are ​within the criteria we have agreed upon.   Mind Mapping has helped me make the information from the meetings more relatable to my  team as well. By breaking it down into four categories and adding some visuals, my team and I  can locate the strengths and weaknesses of what we have in front of us and figure out how we  can work with it to enhance the student experience in our program. Furthermore, we use the  same technique with the students themselves to understand their needs and challenges in their  normal classes, and determine the guidelines and opportunities for what we will seek to offer in  the next round of the program.   This technique has helped to bring organization to the way my team and I work internally, since  we are basically branching out and networking on the daily. If we didn’t break down those  conversations, using mind mapping, we would lose all kinds of opportunities, not only to ensure  new classes for the students, but also to bridge new connections within old and new  stakeholders that maintain similar missions but have never crossed paths. That way we aren’t  only nourishing education, but also helping the business world flourish with new outcomes with  a potentially great social and cultural impact.

