Example Reflection – Mind Mapping

Mind mapping works the way like our mind naturally processes information and can be used  in every situation that requires thinking. It’s an excellent tool for any creative work and very  powerful tool for Design Thinking process. Mind Maps track the natural progression of your  brain by allowing you to connect each new thought to the ones that have come before. It’s  used to look for pattern, insights for creative solutions for our design challenge. Being a human  resource manager for mid-size IT service organisation, navigating through the uncertain  waters, adapting to the disruptive and volatile business needs are the key challenges for me  day to day. Search out for an innovative and cost effective idea for a better employee  experience in day-to-day engagement is always keeps me on my toe. I use Mind mapping in  my weekly planning, Group Brain Storming, Team Meetings, Idea Generation, Event planning,  etc. After started learning about design thinking, I started to apply and implement the basic  framework of Design Thinking in my group interventions. Mind mapping is used in “What is”  and “What If” in design thinking.

Challenge: One of my team of 40 people were going through the tough time in getting new  projects from corporate headquarters. There were lot of perceptions, thoughts were flowing,  and every individual started to blame each other. I proposed with my project manager to  facilitate a group intervention to come up with the possible solutions. I decided to use the  process called “World Café” one of the best process to harvest the group wisdom. I decided  to use Mind Mapping in that group process.

Application: I start the process by debriefing the current situation of the team and set the  context. I formed the five team of 8 members. I had provided enough charts with multicolour  markers for the every team.  Then I spent about 15-20 minutes in explaining about Mind  Mapping tools, importance and its applications. Then I asked about the team to list out the  current reality / perceptions of them with the corporate team (What is stuffs). There were  confusion with few teams that was clarified with the certain examples. Also I suggested all the  team to make their central idea / theme as Öur Team Image”. Then team start to note down  their views in different branches by using different colours and images. I was just observing  and helping few team where it’s needed. Once this is finished, asked the team to visit other  team for their observation and reflection. Here each team has to go visit other team and  observe their mind-mapping chart. During their process, suggestion and clarification was  shared. They also used to share their views with the other team chart. Then I asked team to  visualise, how they wanted to project themselves that is “What If “component in design  thinking. Team also encouraged using multicolour sticky or posting it notes in their individual  mind mapping charts. Then the every team were asked to converge their ideas and thoughts  to form one single mind mapping in a single chart. Team were asked to observe the patterns,  similarity and key points to decide the top two points from every team for the final one chart.   Based on which, team have come up with the action plan with the SMART goals.

Insights and Approach:   One of the wow moment for the entire team was to witness the  kind of different ideas and suggestions that was emerged from different team through the

process. Team members were inspired to see such an outputs at the end of this exercise.  Mind mapping tool enabled the team members to think in a different perspective that unlocked  their creative potential. When the team were visiting other team’s work, lot of sharing was  happening and people were constructively accepting and proving suggestions. Other key  insights throughout this session was the unique patterns that was emerged from those  wonderful date captured in the mind-mapping chart.

One of the amazing discovery was the people’s potential. Yes, all of them were able to come  –up with such a profound ideas. Every team members were highly appreciated the power of  Mind Mapping tool and they found that this is very simple to use tool with the powerful results.  I will use Mind mapping in much better creative way in my next design thinking group process.

