Reflection – Mind Mapping

Challenge & Selection

I am working for a huge telecommunications company and I have been working as a project manager  for HR IT topics and right now I work as an enterprise architect. As enterprise architect we always  face situations where we must find solutions to meet business requirements and conduct vendor  selections. In that cases it turned out to be very useful to collect the necessary information out of  brainstormings etc. in a mind map in a first step. In that way we are able to keep our focus on the  main points and their relations to other important information.

Another use case developed since the last four to five years, when we started to implement our own  Design Thinking approach to find innovative solutions for our business requirements. Together with  business and IT representatives we severely went through this process and the problem as well as  the solution space often started with a mind map to collect and later give a structure to all the  different ideas.

Application

In the environment of Design Thinking in our company I usually start the process of mind mapping in  combination with brain storming. As you might realize in that case, we use the mind map in a reverse  order. In a first step every participant of our group gets some sticky notes to write down their  detailed ideas. In a second step we rearrange the sticky notes and try to find categories and maybe  subcategories for all of them. If we find relations, we can make them visible via lines. In the last step  we collect feedbacks on all points and rate them to find the ideas which fit and which may not fit.

Insight & Approach

What I have learned from conducting the mind map in this way is that the process of idea generation  takes creativity on a higher level. On the one hand, everybody - even introverted colleagues – are  given the chance to share their input via sticky notes. On the other hand people might think further  the ideas of others when they see them on the board.

I discovered that the feedback sessions before the rating can be very fruitful if everybody has a short  time slot to present their ideas to clarify open questions from the audience. And finally, after the  ratings, we always have a clear structure with categorized ideas where we have a common sense and  with the rating already reached a prioritization out of our group discussion.


Reflection – Mind Mapping Challenge & Selection I am working for a huge telecommunications company and I have been working as a project manager for HR IT topics and right now I work as an enterprise architect . As enterprise architect we always face situations where we must find solutions to meet business requirements and conduct vendor selections . In that cases it turned out to be very useful to collect the necessary information out of brainstormings etc . in a mind map in a first step . In that way we are able to keep our focus on the main points and their relations to other important information . Another use case developed since the last four to five years , when we started to implement our own Design Thinking approach to find innovative solutions for our business requirements . Together with business and IT representatives we severely went through this process and the problem as well as the solution space often started with a mind map to collect and later give a structure to all the different ideas . Application In the environment of Design Thinking in our company I usually start the process of mind mapping in combination with brain storming . As you might realize in that case , we use the mind map in a reverse order . In a first step every participant of our group gets some sticky notes to write down their detailed ideas . In a second step we rearrange the sticky notes and try to find categories and maybe subcategories for all of them . If we find relations , we can make them visible via lines . In the last step we collect feedbacks on all points and rate them to find the ideas which fit and which may not fit . Insight & Approach What I have learned from conducting the mind map in this way is that the process of idea generation takes creativity on a higher level . On the one hand , everybody - even introverted colleagues – are given the chance to share their input via sticky notes . On the other hand people might think further the ideas of others when they see them on the board . I discovered that the feedback sessions before the rating can be very fruitful if everybody has a short time slot to present their ideas to clarify open questions from the audience . And finally , after the ratings , we always have a clear structure with categorized ideas where we have a common sense and with the rating already reached a prioritization out of our group discussion .