Example Reflection- Mind Mapping

Challenge and Selection

Mind mapping is a great tool that I use all the time as a business school student. In MBA we are  given case studies and then divided into groups to arrive at consensus to solve the case study.  Mind mapping really helps us as it is a great brainstorming tool for generating new ideas and  exploring a problem. The visual representation of ideas, thoughts and problems also makes it  easy to use and understand.

Once, we were given a business problem which stated that a company needed a new bug  management system as too many product bugs were being reported back to them by their  customers. At this point we had 2 options- investigate for a new bug system or explore the issue  closer to find out other factors that could be resolved first.

Application

My group and I started by adding the central concept to the mind map, and then added ideas  around it. To have some structure and a starting point for generating ideas, we decided to divide  the problem into six categories- strategy, service, process, applications, information, and  infrastructure. Around the central problem, I added six categories and then let loose on a few  things that may be a contributing factor to the “high level of reported product bugs” problem. The  ideas were written down as they were identified and in no particular order. We continued to  generate ideas until all of the obvious ones are exhausted. This way the real thinking and  creativity in exploring the problem could begin.

Insight and Approach

A lot of ideas were generated from a quick 20 minute session with a mind map. The new  identified ideas could be used as central concepts for further analysis. For example, under the  “process” category above, the issue identifying poor QA and release processes could be used as  a central concept for further exploration. This is because maybe a new system is not required.

A review of current processes, some re-engineering, and re-configuration of the current system  may shed better light on how well bugs are being managed and resolved before they are found  by the customer. That way management can implement new strategies to reduce the level of  report product bugs.

I really love using mind maps as they are a powerful business analysis technique for  brainstorming ideas and undercovering the root cause of problems. After this course on design  thinking, I started using mind maps most of the time to solve the business case studies, and I’m  really happy with how new ideas start uncovering by using this simple tool.

