Example Reflection – Mind Mapping

(Module 3)

Challenge

The design tool I have effectively used during my Management Internship at a certain firm was the  Mind Mapping tool. I was expected to work in a team of three to produce a business plan for the firm  for the launch of a new product. This required rigorous research on various processing methodologies  to be used, marketing and branding strategies that could be used and approaching government bodies,  getting grants and forming alliance with various organizations and associations. Due to involvement of  a lot of tasks in the processing, marketing and legalities section of this product, a clear depiction of  various tasks to be achieved and the proper order of approaching the tasks would help to develop an  effective business plan at the earliest via parallel execution of tasks in the required hierarchical order.

Selection

It is always useful to visually organize and arrange information available at hand, to find relationships  between them, which may otherwise be harder to spot and recognize, and to draw conclusions as to how  the problems should be approached. A mind map effectively helps to achieve this by looking for patterns  and insights in large quantity of data collected during exploration for current reality.

Since there were multiple processing methodologies involved for the said new product. Different  methodologies required were explored accordingly and various other organizations and research bodies  were approached to check for feasibility of usage of various methods to elongate the shelf life of the  product. Along with this, for the commercial sale of product, various government legalities would be  needed to be taken care of along with exploring possible government grants and subsidies the firm could  use by associating with various co-operative societies. Alongside to the prior two broad classification  of tasks, it was necessary to explore marketing and branding for the said product, its transportation and  storage and other miscellaneous topics for its feasibility as a venture for the company on the long run.  A mind map would help in visually aiding the hierarchical order to approach these tasks based on their  respective priorities.

Application

Our team sat down to create a mind map, by using a large poster, putting sticky notes on the chart under  colour codes for the three-broad classification of branches requiring major attention for the feasibility  analysis of the new product: legalities, processing and marketing. Once the major primary sources in  each of these categories were labelled on the chart, relationship between tasks and ordering of the tasks  was done for the first layer of available data. Sub-tasks were later added to the chart under the primary  tasks earlier marked and again, relationships between tasks and subtasks were identified and noted on  the chart. Upon execution of the tasks, certain unidentified tasks were introduced along the way which  were accordingly updated to the chart.

For the marketing section, mainly product logo design was to be made, and various creatives were  designed by hand and attached to the mind map and choice of the logo led to approaching graphic  designers for digital outsourcing and the cost quota was noted accordingly. Marketing means and  methods were explored.

For the processing section, a lot of research done to increase the shelf life of the product, required  approaching people and organizations who have previously tried those methodologies to check for its  feasibility and this was done to rule out the methodologies in the mind map which could not be explored  due to various reasons and this helped reduce the number of options to a few which were later explored  to proceed for a cost analysis. For this stage various data collected via calls, e-mails, research both  online and offline were incorporated in the chart.

For the legalities section, it was necessary to approach government bodies and recognize various grants  and subsidies options that the firm could approach for the product. Concurrent working of these  processes was initiated, and progress was noted.

Insight

By using the Mind Map technique, it was easy for our team to report progress to our supervisors. During  weekly meetings, progress being made in the matter was to be summarized and produced. Since, there  is time restriction in the Corporate world, this proved to be very helpful to summarize week long’s  research and findings in the shortest possible time with maximum efficiency and clarity. It also helped  us to see how much we had progressed in the three categories for the product feasibility analysis.

Approach

Mind Mapping proved to be really useful for us to track how to approach the various categories research  and identify tasks and subtasks required focus based on their priority and hierarchical order of  completion to ensure maximum efficiency in the shortest possible time. IT gave a clear depiction of the  work involved in the product feasibility analysis and how to approach various options for the product.

An alternative to this method could be using Visualization and Learning Launch methods in  combinations. While Visualization would have helped in establishing a visual representation of goals  the firm wished to achieve with the product launch, its marketing strategies and logo design, it would  prove less effective to connect the relation between various processes and identify interconnected tasks  and sub tasks as compared to the method of Mind Mapping would. To support Visual Design with  Learning Launch would help in identifying target market and approaches based on assumptions of  customers thus practically putting the feasibility analysis to better use. Learning Launch would be a  more practical approach for later segment of this market study to put various methodologies, associated  customer selection, brand choices made to proper use to closely analyse if the product sale would be  feasible for the company and the cost analysis would prove to be beneficial to breakeven positively.

