Mind Mapping Tool

Challenge and Selection

Among the four designing tools I have selected mind Mapping which is a graphical way to  express the ideas and concepts. It is a visual thinking tool that helps structuring information,  helps to better analyze, comprehend, synthesize, recall and generate new ideas. Moreover, mind  mapping can be used for individual or group activities or a mixture of both to help with  brainstorming and problem solving. usually mind mapping can be used for different scenarios  such as note taking, problem solving, planning, researching and consolidating information from  multiple sources, presenting information, gaining insight on complex subjects etc. I use this  approach to recognize my customers and their needs who are schooling female teenagers, in  business when producing a new product range. So, I have used the technique of mind mapping  to develop the school bag for teenagers.

Application

I start the process by getting a new blank page and writing or drawing my new product idea  that hoping to develop further, which is a girl’s school bag in a landscape orientation. After  that I was developed the related subtopics around the central topic as commercialization,  marketing strategy development, concept developing and testing, idea screening, idea  generation, business analysis, full product development and market testing. after developing  those subtopics, same process has to repeat for the subtopics to generate lower level subtopics  that are relevant to each topic while connecting those to the corresponding areas.

So as the first step idea generation subtopic was connected to the central topic and it can be  further categorized to several steps in idea generation as creative ideas, protection of idea,  involve current customer, learn from competition and assess marketing environment. Basically,  creative ideas can be come from anywhere. So in my case I got the idea of school bag most of  bags are not in a required quality and also there is no proper collection for girls specially. So,  I reviewed regularly like four months about school bags from shops and collected data and  wrote in mind map. Then I was talking with some girls and their parents what they expecting  from a school bags and also I shared a google sheets among school children to know their  preferences and mark in them under idea generation as product, service, lifestyle feedback and  review complaints of existing products in the mind map. Then I organized the details of  competitors and their prizes in the mind map also I summarizes the marketing environment  assessment such as economic, technical, environmental etc.

So as the second step Idea screening can be a put as a subtopic of new product range. Under  that topic I was summarized about the possible errors and failures and further development.

Under Concept development and testing, investing in development, prototype form and  necessary development can be summarizing. After the different protypes of bag types were  produced, the whole evaluation and its results can be shown in a mind map so it will be easy  to communicate with the other group members and their ideas. So basically, it can show does  it work, where are the bugs, can we fix it and the time and cost in a more visualization way in  order to get better understand of each prototype sample. according to the feedback of each  prototype further development process can be planned in a mind map also.

Figure 1mind map

After finalizing the final design of the bag, then it has to send to the customers. Therefore, it is  important to analyze the market in a proper way. After analyzing the market well, we can  visualize in mind map so it will help to analyze the hidden factors and missing holes as well.  hence it is important to make a branch of Marketing strategy development in new product mind  map. So, it can help to better understand about the marketing factors as product, price, place,  promotion, process, people and positioning of the new girls school bag.

When the protypes are approved the next step is to make a finalize product to market. So, by  analyzing the above factors by one by one full product development has to be done and it is  easier when the all details are organized in a visual manner. Under the full product development  full scale production, full testing and product analysis results are showed. In additionally testing  parts are also done in order to make sure whether this bag is in required quality and meets  customer expectations. Additionally, market testing and business analysis are also have to be  done in order to get a proper knowledge about the market that we are entered.

As final step it is required to think about how to commercialize our new product to the  customers in a proper way. Therefore we have to plan expected errors/ problems such as  competitor response, market response/ engagement etc., plan for pro-active, reactive,  contingency scenarios, plan to response in different situations as lower and higher demands,  plant to get a feedback from customers suppliers and competitors and plan to launch with fully  integrated marketing mix.

Insight and Approach

What I have learned from conducting this exercise with al other production, marketing and  finance team is that it is more effective to share/ communicate our ideas in a visualization  manner such as a mind mapping rather than showing like a report. When the problem is showed  in a more visualized and organized then it gives the diverse group of stakeholders a focal point  for discussion that allows them to share their perspective and develop the solutions for practical  problems as well. mainly mind mapping avoids dull, linear thinking, jogging our creativity and  making more visualize manner note taking. Especially when we are going to make a new  product, it is easier way to organize our thoughts in a proper manner. So, mind map helps to  creating associative connections between concepts and it will be making more easier to see the  interconnections between ideas by presenting them in a nonlinear fashion.

Since I discovered that the most valuable aspect is the shared insights and learning, next time  I would use the mind mapping technique in every design thinking activity. So, it will  categorized a one major task into minor tasks and then it will be easier to accomplish one by  one to achieve the main goal at one day.

