Mind Mapping

Challenge & Selection

As a team leader my challenge was to plan and chart the process  work flow and brainstorm ideas with my team on different aspects of  the problem in each segment (design, coding and user experience).  Before learning mind mapping I didn’t have had the proper and easy  visual framework which any member of my team could easily  understand. The main challenge for me was to make it easy for my  team to understand how and what course of action we have to take  and be ready to do it with just a glance. As a team leader I was also  facing some challenges to keep them engage on the work flow side.

When I learned about mind mapping i.e. on week2 it just stroked me  to use it with my team. After completing the course, we created 2  mind maps one of the brainstormed ideas where several different  ideas were brainstormed and arranged orderly. The second mind  map had the process work flow on each segment. Each member of  my team had this mind map which made them very clear about the  how we are approaching towards goal and they felt engaged.

Application:

We used tony buzan mind mapping tool to create final two mind  maps. We had morning brainstorm session where we set the timer  for 10 min and wrote our ideas and subsequently arranged them into  our individual mind map. Picking good ideas from each of our mind  map of our teammate we were able to create a final mind map which  our whole team was aware of and followed to work on those ideas.

By afternoon we started working on process flow mind map where  we charted out each segment and appointed a so called appointed

“segment hero” which undertook the responsibility of managing his  segment. Each “segment hero” managed its own segment to its  fullest. This increased our productivity as everyone in our team was  aware of and have had the holistic view of the project and also how  the other segments are working and what should they be doing. This  increased the collaboration and productivity between my  teammates.

Insight & Approach:

The idea of mind map helped me very much and I also took course  on udemy called ( mind mapping mastery -> effective mind maps ->  step by step by Barry Mapp) knowing about mind mapping also  helped me to plan my weekly routine. Now I use it plan my studying  subject I also make mind maps. The above project I am speaking is  our CS project. I’ve tried to implement with my teammates and I  believe it was successful because we completed the project before  the date of submission.  Learning more about mind map I believe  that it is very abstract and anyone from any field can apply it in  personal or professional life. The context and the framework of the  mind map remains the same but the application changes. Our  teacher was impressed from our project as we also showed her our  final 2 mind maps and she easily followed our work and understood  our project from ground up.

