In the near future I am tasked with planning a long school trip for roughly a dozen college  students across middle America. There are many different types of tourism events we can  imagine visiting, such as museums, landmarks, natural parks, amusement parks, shopping, etc.  As designers we want to know what is of most interest to the travelers, and any connections or if  a particular series would be of special value.  I envision the mind mapping tool as a good way to  collate our brainstorms on a wide variety of activities available to us. I chose it especially  because I do not want to impose a schedule on people without first attempting some communal  consensus.     Mind mapping is a tool in which customers (or in this place each of the travelers) has an  opportunity to weigh in on the many possibilities discovered in the “What is” phase of the design  cycle. Typically a mind mapping session involves each participant or stakeholder being shown a  gallery that includes every possible option. We then ask them each to prioritize the various  options, and then cluster similar topics together. Finally, these same stakeholders form small  groups to assign simple or brief themes to the clusters, and discuss insights that link topics within  clusters and link one cluster to others.  Given these insights the designers (or trip  planners/supervisors) can shape our “What if?” scenarios to the most important criteria  highlighted by the stakeholders. An important question at hand here (which I now paraphrase  from the lecture videos) is: “if anything were possible what criteria would our design meet?”    When I attempted mind mapping with the group at hand I found they were more interested in  variety than in clustering by topic. So I think the insight is that they wished to cluster and then  select the “cream of the crop”, i.e. pick the best option in a “nature” category, “museum”  category, etc and include that as part of the trip. They were also more deferential to each other  than I expected and accepted a general premise that a trip with a large group of people should  include a diverse set of experiences. I wonder if instead I had tried a “learning launch” instead  and asked them to explore various itineraries, the results would have been different. I think  probably it is better to get input as early as possible, as in a learning launch a designer has  already rejected a lot of possible scenarios.  It is easy to brainstorm a ton of options, and to plan  itineraries given certain criteria, the best place for stakeholder input is in prioritizing options and  building consensus at that middle stage.    In future I might try to include some additional constraints as the stakeholders cluster and  prioritize (distances to sites, costs associated with certain sites). I do not know if this takes away  from the elegant simplicity of mind mapping but I do think it fits with the theme of asking  stakeholders to offer their own analyses and conclusions without much bias from the  questioner/designer.


In the near future I am tasked with planning a long school trip for roughly a dozen college students across middle America . There are many different types of tourism events we can imagine visiting , such as museums , landmarks , natural parks , amusement parks , shopping , etc . As designers we want to know what is of most interest to the travelers , and any connections or if a particular series would be of special value . I envision the mind mapping tool as a good way to collate our brainstorms on a wide variety of activities available to us . I chose it especially because I do not want to impose a schedule on people without first attempting some communal consensus . Mind mapping is a tool in which customers ( or in this place each of the travelers ) has an opportunity to weigh in on the many possibilities discovered in the “ What is ” phase of the design cycle . Typically a mind mapping session involves each participant or stakeholder being shown a gallery that includes every possible option . We then ask them each to prioritize the various options , and then cluster similar topics together . Finally , these same stakeholders form small groups to assign simple or brief themes to the clusters , and discuss insights that link topics within clusters and link one cluster to others . Given these insights the designers ( or trip planners / supervisors ) can shape our “ What if ? ” scenarios to the most important criteria highlighted by the stakeholders . An important question at hand here ( which I now paraphrase from the lecture videos ) is : “ if anything were possible what criteria would our design meet ? ” When I attempted mind mapping with the group at hand I found they were more interested in variety than in clustering by topic . So I think the insight is that they wished to cluster and then select the “ cream of the crop ” , i.e. pick the best option in a “ nature ” category , “ museum ” category , etc and include that as part of the trip . They were also more deferential to each other than I expected and accepted a general premise that a trip with a large group of people should include a diverse set of experiences . I wonder if instead I had tried a “ learning launch ” instead and asked them to explore various itineraries , the results would have been different . I think probably it is better to get input as early as possible , as in a learning launch a designer has already rejected a lot of possible scenarios . It is easy to brainstorm a ton of options , and to plan itineraries given certain criteria , the best place for stakeholder input is in prioritizing options and building consensus at that middle stage . In future I might try to include some additional constraints as the stakeholders cluster and prioritize ( distances to sites , costs associated with certain sites ) . I do not know if this takes away from the elegant simplicity of mind mapping but I do think it fits with the theme of asking stakeholders to offer their own analyses and conclusions without much bias from the questioner / designer .