Mind mapping is a creativity drawing technique that’s used to capture and organize ideas and the relationships between the ideas related to some central theme.
A mind map helps you visualize the challenge at hand: some problem you’re trying to solve, some plan you’re trying to develop, something you’re trying to understand better or look for new ideas for. It helps you formulate and remember things to do. It may be used as-is for remembering and organizing things, or it can be used as the basis for other things, like to-do lists, or a more formal type of plan, like a project management plan or a marketing. Mind mapping can be used in problem solving, decision making, and writing. You can do mind mapping alone or with other people in a collaborative brainstorming session.
This episode discusses:
- What mind mapping is and its uses
- The mind mapping process
- Mind mapping tools
References used in this episode:
- Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition), by Michael Michalko, Chapter 8, Think Bubbles.
- Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius, by Michael Michalko, pages 51-68.
- Wikipedia article on Mind Mapping.
- Wikipedia article on Mind Mapping Tools.
- Adventures of the ITIL Imp blog posting on Mind Mapping.
- Exploding Creativity episode on Diversity.
- Unified Modeling Language Resource Page.
- Wikipedia article on the Unified Modeling Language.
Example Mind Map:
