Learning Platform Naming with a Mind Mapping Methodology    Challenge  Naming for an internal system that will reach an entire employee population inside of a global  Fortune 100 organization. Our challenge was to generate a unique name for a ubiquitous  learning platform to more effectively build equity into an overarching narrative established by  senior leaders of our client.    Selection  Many design thinking methods were employed, with mind-mapping being one of the more  successful tools to quickly generate naming ideas as pertaining to key messages. Mind mapping  was selected due to the rapid allowance of divergent and convergent thinking. Additionally, this  tool provides an evolutionary view of our thoughts and ideas.    Application  Before mind mapping would begin, key messages were distilled from stakeholder and audience  interviews across a broad range of subject matter experts. These key messages formed the base  direction and guiding light of our mind mapping exercise and allowed free thinking to gravitate  around a singular concept. The divergent, rapid-fire brainstorming in the first session provided  the team with plentifully concepts to wade through and distill. Surprisingly, our conversations  had the team starting to redefine certain aspects of established key messages, which were  captured for a future mapping session. At the conclusion of this initial mapping, ideas were  collected, concentrated, and codified further to allow new central figures to emerge.     During our convergent sessions, energy began to form around two naming concepts that  further reframed the once-established narrative handed down to the team. We had  successfully brought new benefits and messages to light, which in turn would strengthen the  value proposition of the platform and equity in the eventual name. A third mind mapping  meeting would then pull together solidified ideas for consideration.    Insight  Insights gained form leveraging this tool were many. Most surprisingly to the team was that we  were able to redefine the established narrative passed to us by senior leaders. With our  thought mapped out in the topographical visualization, these leaders were able to “check our  thinking” and build consensus on emerging patterns first unthought of in the narrative.     Selfishly, this method was selected to bring together our team in a way not often leveraged.  The result of our approach provided members of our team, who were mostly not rooted in this  way of divergent/convergent thinking, a new appreciation for a process of rapid idea  generation and selection. The ability to observe the legacy of thinking, developing, removing,  rethinking, and moving forward with “winners” is now an oft-mentioned tool in our box.    Approach

Future approaches will benefit from us augmenting our time spent on certain phases of  mapping. Feedback gained from our internal lessons-learned meeting was that divergent time  spent vastly outweighed codifying and sometimes felt aimless. A more structured “timebox” for  each phase will be attempted in further mind mapping exercises to perhaps concentrate our  collective thinking.

