Mind mapping (Module 3)

1. Challenge

Three years ago, I had to lead a workshop in a French large bank, with a public of about twenty  Business and IT executives.

The first part of the meeting was to show them the state of the art of the artificial intelligence  technologies for creating new banking services.

The second part of the meeting was to identify and explore several possibilities for them to create  new services for their customers, where we used mind mapping.

2. Selection

The room for the meeting was well equipped, with walls where we can fix large papers and write and  scotch post-it. We also had several tables where we can divide the population in small groups.

We have used this to create several mind maps, one for the whole group in order to collect ideas in a  first step, and others – one for each group - to illustrate the ideas we collected. The mind mapping  tool seems to be the best tool for this work because it is one of the most powerful tool of the design  thinking toolbox, and it is perfectly adapted for contexts where we have to be creative and visual.

3. Application

First, we have collected ideas : we have given each participant of the workshop several post-it where  they had to write a small description of the ideas for the next challenges in their banking  environment. We collected all these papers and we put them of the first global mind map. During  this work, we have had about one hundred of ideas. We have visually organized these ideas on the  paper fixed on the wall, and our graphical facilitator illustrated this with the different comment made  by the participants. Them, with a collective voting process, we have selected the four most important  challenges we wanted to explore.

Second, we have separated the participants in four groups. Each group had to explore one idea and  imagine how can artificial intelligence address the challenge, by example with the creating of a new  service, or y the improvement of an existing one. For the moment, the objective was only to illustrate  IA in the challenge, and not to identify the solution (this point was addressed later during a second  workshop).

For this job, we have given the 4 groups, several magazines, markers, paper scissor, glue sticks and a  large paper. They have to use all these materials to create a support for illustrate their subject. Our  graphical facilitator was in the room, and he was moving from table to table to assist to groups in this  work. We was also completing their work with illustrations with the markers.

At the end for this work, the four groups have shown their work in front of all participants, and to  defend their ideas.

4. Insight

The workshop was a success, and the use of mind mapping was a great idea, for the following  reasons :

-  it is a visual tool, and all participants understood easily the ideas shown of the papers.

-  It is easy to create a collaborative approach inside the group, in a positive way. This leads to  the emergence of a large number of ideas and comments

-  We had at the end of the meeting a support with the paper constituted together, wich was  part of the minute of the workshop

5. Approach

I’am very satisfied for the use of mind mapping for this meeting but one lesson I learned was about  the timekeeping. Once the participants are launched in their cutting work for magazines and sticking  them in a large paper, the wanted to be perfectionists and it is easy for them to get lot in graphical  useless details. When we organize such meeting, I now think that we have to define a maximal time  for the work and to announce in the beginning of the workshop that the most important if not the  graphical quality of the mind map, but the ideas they find.

Second important point for this case : I have given whole magazines to the participants and they  have to find the picture before cutting and sticking them. If I have to redo such workshop, I would  directly prepare a large set of picture and cutting myself the magazines in order to facilitate their  work. I think that this preliminary job is a good accelerator for this kind ofmeeting.

