Mind Maps

When I was studying for the CIMA "case study" paper one of the tools which was recommended by the study guide was to prepare a mind map. It was recommended to have the case name written in the middle of a page and then to start jotting down all the points that come to the mind in circles around it while connecting to the relevant points. It was my first experience in using mind maps.

TT's TODO list for a day

After joining hSenid it became a daily activity to use mind maps. Instead of doing it on paper I moved into software tools to do the same which gave me more flexibility and clarity. The mind map plugin was the major reason I liked google wave. It allowed to create mind maps in collaboration. Making life easier for teams to work on a single file.

What I had realized over time is that mind maps are useful to plan out daily activities, requirements gathering and planning, strategic analysis, product design, report planning, solution analysis, etc. The biggest advantage that I have seen from a mind map is the ability to capture the "eureka moments" that come up in a spur of a moment while we are analyzing something, which if we had been thinking in a traditional sequential way of analysing, we would have ended up ignoring or delaying to put down on paper and eventually forgetting it altogether. Hence mind maps have the ability to capture a good brain dump and then allow to organize them into associated groups making it easier for analysis and execution. Give it a try its worth it!