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Mind-mapping tools and techniques go beyond the limitations of rudimentary Microsoft Project plans and Excel issues lists, allowing project leaders to visually define project scope, identify potential risks, assign tasks, and capture meeting minutes. How do you determine your project's scope? PMP-certified project professionals and others know the textbook answer is to refer to a scope planning process to produce a formal scope statement. A scope statement provides project justification, key deliverables and project objectives, while scope definition processes further divide the major project deliverables into manageable components. This textbook approach, however, doesn't provide tactical tools to develop and define a project's scope. Scope statements are often the result of brainstorming multiple ideas and gleaning the best candidates.
Mind mapping tools can be an effective, tactical alternative for brainstorming a project's scope, establishing a high-level WBS, and identifying potential risks early in the project lifecycle.
What are Mind Maps? Mind maps are simply network diagram with nodes, branches, colors, and icons to help convey an idea. Teachers refer to them as brainstorm maps. It is a simple picture view of an idea. People often think and communicate with pictures. Written words build an image in your mind and the image conveys the idea. Think back to any process flows, organization chart, or Gantt chart. They all convey a message using pictures. Figure 1 displays a mind map for this article.
They are used to organize thoughts, ideas, and help convey the ideas to others. Instead of delivering a speech with note cards or pages of notes, an entire 3x5 index card can be used with a mind map to deliver a speech. Instead of a shopping list, a simple mind map can help you creatively remember the milk while your taste buds are gravitating to the free food samples. These simple mind mapping examples can further applied to project management?
Mind-mapping Project Scope
Consider this common scenario: Your boss stops by your desk and asks you to work on a new software implementation project. Your company partners with several professional staffing firms to supplement its workforce on key projects. The business needs to adopt a management-by-project mindset and gain visibility and control over its yearly spend for contracted resources. Your boss wants you to manage the requirements gathering phase and to research potential software solutions to support a “make vs. buy” decision. In typical top-down management fashion, you've been given eight weeks to provide a recommendation.
You develop a plan and build a team to spend the first few weeks gathering business requirements and researching the professional services automation domain. During your research, your team identifies numerous business processes and functions including timekeeping, resource management, billing, services procurement, contracts, skills inventory, requisitions, resource acquisition and termination. At the end of the first few weeks, your team is overwhelmed with information overload. What is the project scope?
Mind mapping can help organize the ideas and provide a conceptual view of the project’s scope. The mind map further enables brainstorming, prioritization of thought, and overall communication for the potential scope. Colors, pictures and lines can be added to the mind map to connect thoughts, identify important ideas, and highlight questionable ideas. Additional branches can be added to plan multiple releases or iterations for the project. Figure 2 depicts the sample project’s overall scope.
The same mind map can be used as an addendum to the project charter, stakeholder communication, or a team kickoff meeting. Instead of printing pages of paper, the high-level project scope can be clearly explained in one page. The graphical nature of the mind map further enables revisions as project stakeholders reprioritize requirements and continue to draw on the mind map. Additional issues, risks and follow up items can be easily added to the map.
Mind-mapping Tools Mind maps can be drawn simply with paper and a few colorful pens. However, there are several software products available to document, facilitate and communicate the mind map. Depending on the requirements, commercial and free open-source software are available.
Visual Mind is a commercial software package that provides a business and basic edition. The business edition provides additional features including Word and Excel document creation, file embedding, security features and multiple map tabs. The basic edition provides the core mind mapping functionality; the business edition provides all the features that support publishing and exporting maps to different documents. A business license is $299 and the basic license is $99.
Mindjet Mind Manager offers a professional license for $349 and a basic edition $229. The professional version provides all the mind-mapping functionality found in the basic version and provides integration with Microsoft Excel, Outlook, MS-Project and Visio. The ability to mind map project tasks and quickly build a project plan is a desirable feature.
Fans of open-source technologies will appreciate Freemind for its impressive features and zero-cost. Freemind’s user-friendly interface allows you to quickly build mind maps while supporting multiple export features including jpeg, HTML, XML and the Open Office Writer format. As open-source tools evolve and commercial vendors adopt the Open Document format, the integration points between open-source and commercial software will blend.
All of these sites offer free evaluation copies. Play with a few of the packages and find the one that works for you and your organization’s budget.
Recommended Reading There are several books available on mind mapping. You don't need a software package to start mind mapping, and the following books will help jumpstart your creative thinking and brainstorming. According to Wikipedia, Tony Buzan is one of the pioneers in mind mapping and has authored a number of books dedicated to "improved learning and clearer thinking that will enhance human performance.” His books, which are easy to read and will get you mind mapping almost immediately, include How to Mind Map; Mind Maps at Work: How to Be the Best at Your Job and Still Have Time to Play; and How to Mind Map: Make the Most of Your Mind and Learn to Create, Organize and Plan. There is also MindManager for Dummies by Hugh Cameron.
Mind maps extend beyond the project management domain and once you start, you may find them useful in every day life.
For the project manager, mind maps are effective visualization tools to define a project's scope, identify potential issues and risks, assign tasks, and capture meeting minutes. Project managers can improve their skill set by applying new ideas and tools outside of the rudimentary MS-Project plan and Excel issues list. Future articles will dive deeper into mind mapping for risk management and its application to project control and execution. This article was written by Andy Makar and was originally published at Projects@Work at A Better Project Map
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