Mind Mapping - The case of a facilitated mobile selling platform.

Author: Yunier Leung

In 2011 a colleague and I embarked in a difﬁcult task, building the most advanced

craft beer e-commerce that our market had ever seen. Having worked together in the  largest craft beer company in Latin America, we had the experience and knew we could  do better. During the design process of the new business, we saw ourselves locked in a  sea of technical options on how the application could be built, what it would have and  what not. We collected about 200 features up to then, and they should be narrowed to a  maximum of a handful manageable items. But how?

The selection and application of the tool happened concomitantly. As we laid out so

many disconnected options in front of us, so we began organizing and connecting the  dots. Soon enough, the tool showed itself to us: Mind Mapping. It is extremely useful  exactly to that: surface patterns in a large knowledge base. The tool consists of  reorganizing the ideas hierarchically, starting from a initial, broad and general point. In our  case, this was the ﬁnal result: an app. Soon some clusters and a workﬂow surfaced, lot's  of correlated small pieces falling into larger ones, as steps of a larger construction.

After some days of work, the ﬁrst insight appeared: we just needed the steps really

useful to take products from our stock to the client, exactly how a well done mind map  should look, organized and sensible. Everything that stepped in the way of our goal should  and could be removed. We ditched away collecting too much information from our clients,  we built stocks near them, with really fast deliveries, removing the distance itself. Added  artiﬁcial intelligence algorithms to predict lot's of information that was not central to the  user experience, but that would facilitate the conversion. Lot's of features were  consolidated in small, really needed groups.

The approach turned out to be very efﬁcient. When we reached the prototype

version of the business it was elegant, simple and goal centric. In every new phase of the  business we reapplied designing mind maps so that everyone knew both processes,  hierarchies and what really matter: how everything connected. I could not change anything  beyond applying the tool earlier every time.


Mind Mapping - The case of a facilitated mobile selling platform . Author : Yunier Leung In 2011 a colleague and I embarked in a difﬁcult task , building the most advanced craft beer e - commerce that our market had ever seen . Having worked together in the largest craft beer company in Latin America , we had the experience and knew we could do better . During the design process of the new business , we saw ourselves locked in a sea of technical options on how the application could be built , what it would have and what not . We collected about 200 features up to then , and they should be narrowed to a maximum of a handful manageable items . But how ? The selection and application of the tool happened concomitantly . As we laid out so many disconnected options in front of us , so we began organizing and connecting the dots . Soon enough , the tool showed itself to us : Mind Mapping . It is extremely useful exactly to that : surface patterns in a large knowledge base . The tool consists of reorganizing the ideas hierarchically , starting from a initial , broad and general point . In our case , this was the ﬁnal result : an app . Soon some clusters and a workﬂow surfaced , lot 's of correlated small pieces falling into larger ones , as steps of a larger construction . After some days of work , the ﬁrst insight appeared : we just needed the steps really useful to take products from our stock to the client , exactly how a well done mind map should look , organized and sensible . Everything that stepped in the way of our goal should and could be removed . We ditched away collecting too much information from our clients , we built stocks near them , with really fast deliveries , removing the distance itself . Added artiﬁcial intelligence algorithms to predict lot 's of information that was not central to the user experience , but that would facilitate the conversion . Lot 's of features were consolidated in small , really needed groups . The approach turned out to be very efﬁcient . When we reached the prototype version of the business it was elegant , simple and goal centric . In every new phase of the business we reapplied designing mind maps so that everyone knew both processes , hierarchies and what really matter : how everything connected . I could not change anything beyond applying the tool earlier every time .