Reflection – Mind mapping

Challenge:           I am currently working in a manufacturing company in the new product development (NPD)  department and my team’s challenge is to find pattern and theme of our new product ideas and  data to be successful in planning and prototyping the new product and to become a successful  product in the competitive market. The project scope includes the NPD department composed  of five employees, as well as the larger marketing department with whom we work closely. The  project is limited to internal resources (i.e., budget and employee time). The project should not  exceed 180 business days and the first batch of the new potential product has to be submitted  to the potential customer. We have to listen to our team members, as well as key stakeholders  within the marketing department regarding the ideas, feasibility, and constraints of  manufacturing. Due to a larger no of opinions, it is very ineffective or problematic concerning  executing the product.    Selection:         A mind map is a great tool that is a graphical way to represent ideas and concepts. It is a visual  thinking tool that helps to structure information, helping you to better analyse, comprehend,  synthesize, recall and generate new ideas. In a mind map, as opposed to traditional note-taking  or a linear text, information is structured in a way that resembles much more closely how our  brain works. Since it is an activity that is both analytical and artistic, it engages your brain in a  much, much richer way, helping in all its cognitive functions. It was fascinating to use this tool for  developing a new product, market mapping, and market segmentation altogether.    Application:         The main purpose of using mind mapping for me is to get some patterns or themes of existing  ideas or thoughts. This is a collection of ideas systematically and graphically. For our new product,  we created mind mapping that consists of strategy, probable road map, planning manufacturing  and its constraints, market potential analysis. In each case, it has been illustrated properly. For  example, market potential analysis, each step is illustrated like import-export data analysis,  competitor data analysis, consulting with a marketing person and data collection and analysis.  Then by market segmentation, proper market mapping is being done.    Insight:         By applying the learning mind mapping, our team identified our assumptions and designed  launches to test these assumptions. Additionally, we thought through anticipated results,  expecting to find that a more agile approach would improve our workflow and that both our  team and the key stakeholders would be fairly open to the new prioritization of tasks and  processes.            This mind mapping gave a proper picture of our journey to excellence. Everybody felt  confident, even though the first team was quite hesitant about the new product. The ongoing  incorporation of insight is particularly important at this stage, as mind mapping is done before

concept development and assumption testing and rapid prototyping in the design thinking  timeline.      Approach:          Since I successfully used mind mapping in the new product development process, next time  I would use the learning launch as a starting point for a series of design thinking activities. Then  learning launch can be done to conduct a small experiment that can test our new idea in the real  marketplace. From that, we can know the real market value of our new product. If assumptions  are proved according to idea and data, scaling up will be the step.

