Mind mapping

Challenge & selection  In my working experience as a business analyst, one of the key responsibilities has been to get a very  good understanding of how complex business processes work in a short period of time in a client’s  organisation that I’m practically totally unaware of.  In order to provide our customers with new ideas  and solutions, we need to understand their business very fast.

That is why, over the course of my career and after trying out many different approaches to this  challenge, I’ve come to a decision that the best tool for this particular and extremely important task is  mind mapping. Mind mapping, when done right, is an incredibly effective tool for gathering all the  necessary information directly from my clients who know their business best and can prioritise each  single element of it.

Application & insight  The tool of mind mapping was effectively applied to go over the client´s various business processes  due to the fact that it involved the right people who possessed the right amount of knowledge and  gave a necessary insight into the business as a whole, by promoting discussion, data visualisation,  idea generation and implementation.

We used sticky notes for gathering input from all the present representatives of our client, for each  aspect of our scope – who are their clients, who are their employees, what are their business  processes, what is the value that they create for their clients, what are the problems and possible  solutions etc. From that point, we gathered the respective notes in groups and started to analyse and  combine them. After that, we would stick the notes on a huge whiteboard and started to create a  structured module of our client´s business. That led on to identifying problems and together, as a  team, coming up with solutions to these problems, which, in turn, led us to prototyping and testing our  new solutions.

Approach  I think that for this particular task, mind mapping is a powerful and effective tool, whereas it can be a  bit misleading when it’s not done right. For example, if you gather information from people that have  not been working long enough in that company, it can seriously affect the result in a negative way and  can thus decrease your customer’s satisfaction with your service. Next time, when I´m tackling this  challenge with new clients, I might also try to work in visualization since it might be fruitful to our  clients for both, describing the existing business processes and generating new solutions.


Mind mapping Challenge & selection In my working experience as a business analyst , one of the key responsibilities has been to get a very good understanding of how complex business processes work in a short period of time in a client ’s organisation that I ’m practically totally unaware of . In order to provide our customers with new ideas and solutions , we need to understand their business very fast . That is why , over the course of my career and after trying out many different approaches to this challenge , I ’ve come to a decision that the best tool for this particular and extremely important task is mind mapping . Mind mapping , when done right , is an incredibly effective tool for gathering all the necessary information directly from my clients who know their business best and can prioritise each single element of it . Application & insight The tool of mind mapping was effectively applied to go over the client´s various business processes due to the fact that it involved the right people who possessed the right amount of knowledge and gave a necessary insight into the business as a whole , by promoting discussion , data visualisation , idea generation and implementation . We used sticky notes for gathering input from all the present representatives of our client , for each aspect of our scope – who are their clients , who are their employees , what are their business processes , what is the value that they create for their clients , what are the problems and possible solutions etc . From that point , we gathered the respective notes in groups and started to analyse and combine them . After that , we would stick the notes on a huge whiteboard and started to create a structured module of our client´s business . That led on to identifying problems and together , as a team , coming up with solutions to these problems , which , in turn , led us to prototyping and testing our new solutions . Approach I think that for this particular task , mind mapping is a powerful and effective tool , whereas it can be a bit misleading when it ’s not done right . For example , if you gather information from people that have not been working long enough in that company , it can seriously affect the result in a negative way and can thus decrease your customer ’s satisfaction with your service . Next time , when I´m tackling this challenge with new clients , I might also try to work in visualization since it might be fruitful to our clients for both , describing the existing business processes and generating new solutions .