REFLECTION – MIND MAPPING

Challenge and Selection

At a business school, the number ONE aspiration for students is to get a hot job at the end  of their 2-year program. Like any business school, students are exposed to management  concepts and theories with added emphasis on holistic development of personality that  boosts confidence and overall transformation. In all the myriad activities and tasks that  students go through, they see a clutter of actions in their quest for a hot job. This can be  confusing and daunting and it would be helpful if they can see a clear path in their journey.  The challenge therefore is to help students visualize the journey in their quest for a hot job.  The tool selected was Mind Mapping to see through the clutter.

Application

This tool was used in a workshop with students who were divided into different groups to  brainstorm what actions they felt were needed to get a HOT JOB and also aid their personal  transformation. After their 20 minutes of discussions, the groups were asked share their top  actions which they had listed in their respective groups. As anticipated every group had  different interpretations of actions listed which when grouped meant the same thing. Listing   out all the actions and clustering them, there was a pattern emerging which looked like this.

MIND MAP - Students 2-year Plan

The PATTERN that emerged had each of the clusters with a set of actions that could also be  tailored from an individual’s perspective based on their skill and confidence levels.

Insight and approach

By involving stakeholders in a mind mapping process, a clear path emerged on how to  achieve an end goal/objective by cutting through the clutter. This process was conducted  with about 60 students as they were the stakeholders. A large sample was taken to help  embed the learnings and not sure how it would have turned up with a smaller sample size as  the journey of cutting through the clutter is the a-ha moment. Basis this experience and also  the type of problem, I would recommend this mind mapping process can also be used in the  brainstorming process in the WHAT IS stage.

