Reflection - Mind Mapping

Challenge

In research and development activities, perhaps one of the most difficult tasks next to identifying a  research topic is the creation of research methodology which is not only original but also innovative.  For instance, when a methodology is decided and once review of related literatures is done, we usually  find out that the methodology we have decided on is not anymore original or might be that many  other works have already been doing the proposed methodology. If these things happen, another  meeting will be done to brainstorm again on other research methodology that will work with the  research project. Now how do we fix this time-consuming stage of the research and development?

Selection

The design thinking tool that we use for this problem is mind mapping. Mind mapping for us is a tool  that captures the things that we think of specifically in designing research methodologies. Mind  mapping helps us generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas to look for patterns and insights that  provide key design criteria. We select this design thinking tool because it saves us so much time and  we also see some gray areas that later becomes especially useful in our studies. The outliers in our  mind map are usually the ideas that helps us proceed with our study and mind mapping is immensely  helpful in finding these outliers.

Application

In our mapping, we usually require the members of the research group to have already read  journals, patents, and other relevant research materials that we can use prior to attending the  brainstorming activity. We also ask them to bring their review of literature notes with them. We  then start to discuss the research methodology starting with one central topic that branch out into  several subtopics. Each person will then discuss that literatures that he/she have research and we  write it up in our map. For certain ideas that do not belong to a certain branch, we usually  temporarily write it in one corner. After that, we discuss common themes and find gray areas and  loopholes in the literatures. We then finally come up with an agreed idea which we will later further  furnish. The mind mapping tool will be ineffective when one if the research member did not do  his/her homework in doing the research and reading works. Team work here is extremely important.  The importance of having each one their own ideas is so that we will have different outlook on the  topic.

Insight

In applying the mind mapping tool in our designing of the research methodology, we were able to  save a lot of time. It also helps us analyze more deeply the previous works through the group  discussion. The beauty of having diverse minds also helps us make our research more original and  more innovative in a sense that the ideas is not a monopoly. In previous days when we were not yet  applying mind mapping activities, we usually waste a lot of time in this stage of our research that  sometimes it becomes a one-person designed methodology only which we do not like since we

wanted to be more innovative in our works. Mind mapping surely is an exceptionally good tool to  help us in these types or problems.

Approach

In the next research brainstorming we are still going to apply mind mapping however, we will  combine it with other tools such as visualization because there are times when some of the  members do not understand a specific idea that was raised which can be more understood by  providing visualizations. Mind mapping combined with other tools in design thinking is surely a very  good tool in research and development projects.

