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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Mind maps

Seen on an email thread  (Couldnt find who originally sent it)

Ways you can use a mind map:

* As a dashboard for all your current projects, then link out to detailed documents and add task, date and resource information to topics.

* To help organize and flesh out the structure of any written document - an article, proposal, report, brief, lecture, etc.

* To help you run more effective meetings by arranging the information in a more actionable way faster.

* To get ideas flowing at the very beginning stages of planning or brainstorming - the visual display allows you to see connections you didn't consider before.

Additional Product Manager specific uses include:

* Figuring out your strategy
* Creating business cases
* Capturing and organizing market research
* Brainstorming product & campaign ideas
* Developing launch & campaign plans
* Tracking competition 
* Gathering product requirements 
* Conducting interviews (e.g. efficient note-taking) 

It can still be useful even if you are the only one creating maps in your organization. 

Maps can often be good presentation tools that give others a diagrammatic representation of your points.

Furthermore, maps can be exported into different formats that people are familiar with, like Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF.