1. Challenge

My employer is an international holding of mostly agro-industrial companies that is  present in several countries, namely United States of America, United Kingdom,  Spain, France, Italy, Australia, Argentina and Uruguay.

I work in the application systems department, which has presence only in the US,  Spain, Argentina and Uruguay. We service all our internal customers (the companies  belonging to the group) from these 4 countries with a handful of people.

We execute either packaged application software implementation or custom-made  software development, via selecting software applications and service vendors. We  have a very streamlined process for executing both kinds of projects within time and  budget constraints, but our software and vendor selection process has high  variability and we would like to reduce it, in order to make it more predictable and  repetitive.

2. Selection

We have written procedures for almost everything. We failed miserably trying to  describe a thorough software and vendor selection process. So we decided to  experiment with the mind mapping technique, to see whether it was useful to get  out of the deadlock we all peers got when writing documents starting from different  points of view, that are due to the group members’ personal backgrounds, as well as  cultural nuances owed to the distinct geographies present in the group.

3. Application

With the use of collaborative software, we started drawing isolated concepts on a  piece of (digital) “paper”, allowing each of the participants to suggest these concepts,  but asking everyone not to relate concepts, just mentioning them. There was a  moderator.

After the group ran out of ideas regarding concepts (more than 30 were mentioned,  some examples were: application software, vendor, request for proposal, proposal,  contract, project, staff, negotiation, price, duration, effort, features, etc.), all of us were  encouraged to draw lines relating concepts. Lines could be of 2 types: plain lines or  arrows. Arrows were used to show dependences (concept B depends on concept A).

We stopped just after relating the concepts and had a second session a couple of  days later, where we segmented the conceptual map into deliverables and the  remaining concepts. Deliverables were sequenced or parallelized, and a first draft of  a process was naturally drawn.

4. Insight

I am a trained software engineer and always use the toolbox metaphor, but in my  experience, there are some tools I learnt that I never used. So I am pretty skeptical  regarding carrying extra tools in the toolbox if I am not sure that these will be of use.

Mind mapping has revealed itself to me of being a very interesting alternative when  reaching a deadlock, especially when discussing by e-mail or by sharing written  documents. Having several people, especially peers  (or even by oneself, if one has  the sufficient discipline) think about concepts and posting them on a board without  prejudices, followed by linking them in any possible way opens many possibilities  that are uncovered otherwise.

5. Approach

Now I am looking to expand its use. Not only will I use it for internal situations, such  as the one described above, but I am wondering to use it for situations where there  are conflicts. Typically I generally face conflicts with internal customers (group  companies) and suppliers (non-group companies). If both sides are interested in  reaching common ground, why can’t mind mapping be explored as a  complementary aid to standard negotiation techniques?

