Reflection – Mind Mapping Tool

Challenge & Selection

Mind Mapping is a useful tool for maintaining the design thinking process. Before the  selection, I would like to explain our team and the problems that we have. I have been  working with a team that we conducted under the Fire Up Change Pioneers Program, based  on Amazon and Visvesvaraya

Technological University collaboration. The goal is to create a  new social innovation project idea for our campuses. The idea that we find must increase  the life quality of campuses and fit with one or more of the United Nations Sustainable  Development Goals. I am going to describe the challenges we obtained in the application  process by giving more details. We selected not only the Mind Mapping tool but also other  tools. I want to explain all processes that we did and the Mind Mapping tool because this  tool helps us about grouping and identifying the problems, makes our process faster.

Application

Our team consists of three BOUN students and 2 ITU students. As a result, we could  generate different ideas because of our different perspectives. We used different design  thinking tools that Leonardi mentioned such as ethnographic research, brainstorming,  creating personas, visualization and mind mapping in our project. Firstly, we did some  interviews at both Visvesvaraya

Technological University and ITU campuses to identify common problems. We  saw that there are many problems related to different areas such as nutrition,  transportation and socialization. We used the ethnographic research method in our  interviews. Then, all project groups met at ITU. We took post-its to implement the mind  mapping tool. We wrote down all problems with their all details into these post-its and  pasted them on the wall. We matched similar ones with each other. As a result, problems'  major topics occurred. We debated about major topics and determined which is a more  useful problem for us. We selected the socialization problem of lonely and/or shy people.  After defining the major problem, we used the canvas model for defining the problem,  determining our competitors, creating personas and finding solutions. Here are the photos  when we worked together on interviewing and our canvas model:

Insight & Aproach

All of these design thinking tools improve our team working, enigma solving and being  systematic skills. Specific to Mind Mapping, I had a chance to reduce my disarray by working  with post-its and work more visualize. If we did not apply these tools to our work, the  duration of the project will be much prolonged. Also, we could find problems by making  interviews with students and see their ethnographic features. Nowadays, we are working on  the Learning Launch tool and we hope that we will continue for prototyping.

In the next time, I want to use all of these design thinking tools in my work again because  they improve my work quality and motivation. Especially, I want to focus more on the  Learning Launch tool because I have to practice that. I will apply all of the tools after  graduation as well. This lesson widens my knowledge and capability, gives me a new point  of view.

