Beyond Mind Mapping

Biggerplate Unplugged conference, January 2013

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to catch up with Liam Hughes of Biggerplate, who is launching the Biggerplate Unplugged conference series, starting in January 2013.

Ideas for a mini-conference around mind mapping and mind mapping software have surfaced and sunk again for as long as I can remember, but this time is it really happening, thanks to Liam's drive. It needed doing, but unlike many of the rest of us, Biggerplate were not going to sit and hope that it would eventually do itself. Whether or not it "succeeds", we owe them a big debt of gratitude for shouldering the burden and also for making it very accessible. But I don't think they need worry too much; the attendee list is already a Who's Who in this niche, and is going to be unmissable for anyone seriously interested in mind mapping software. Despite the fragmentation of online groups by an explosion of social media channels, I think there is still a real interest in in-depth application stories, experiences and insights. Perhaps meeting face-to-face and sharing more than 140 characters is the new social media. Or maybe I'm just old.

The well-worn marketing strapline "It does what it says on the tin" could hardly apply less to mind mapping software. So I am delighted to also say that at the London event I will be presenting some new ideas around the use of mind mapping software for communication instead of Mind Mapping. I look forward to seeing you there!

• What: Biggerplate Unplugged mini-conference
• When: Thursday 31st January 2013
• Where: Central London, England
• Cost: Early Bird tickets under £20. Book here sooner rather than later :)

Vic's Picks and BiggerPlate competition

Late as always, but better than never...

A couple of weeks ago Vic Gee launched the "Vic's Picks" and "Vic's Faves" sections in his encyclopaedic Master List of visual mapping software. This is the most comprehensive collection of visualisation software tools anywhere, with 290 live entries. The amount of work behind that goes into a project on this scale is hard to comprehend; and as Vic points out, with this much information, it is equally hard to know where to start choosing. So the opportunity to learn from someone who has taken the time to study so many products is invaluable. On behalf of everyone who uses these tools, thank you Vic for your tireless (and unsponsored) work.

I am also pleased to see Biggerplate going from strength to strength. The biggest and best thought out catalogue of user-submitted MindManager maps anywhere, it is well worth a browse if you use MindManager. Liam has just announced a competition to win 5 license superbundles, and I am delighted that Power Markers is one of the products that you can win, together with Mindjet's MindManager 9 and Oympic's Opti-Suite for MindManager. So get your favourite maps uploaded and feel free to post a link to them below, and I and the kind readers of this blog will help to get you into the competition ;-)

Power Markers version 2: dashboard maps by design

I read with interest Chuck Frey's recent Mind Map Insider report "Everything you ever wanted to know about dashboard mind maps but were afraid to ask". There are some good ideas there, but also a couple that will send you down the wrong path; one example appears to summarise dynamic information, but the data is actually entered manually. Another would be frustratingly inefficient to use, requiring you to review the whole map at each visit and keep it up to date by moving things from one list to another. The theme behind these dashboard maps seemed to be holding up a mirror to the features of mind mapping software, rather than exploiting it for a higher purpose.

The fence at which nearly all dashboard map designs fall is this: a tree diagram provides only one perspective. It can't be a top-down view of a project and a list of critical things to do by the end of this week, in the same picture. Each may contain the other, but the secondary role will be compromised in some way, requiring you to work harder to extract it. If your dashboard map consists of lists of things to do, it will be hard to step back and see the big picture. If your dashboard map is the big picture, you will have to be careful not to overlook something crucial that might be out of view while you are blue-sky thinking. Neither compromise augers well for maps that should be ergonomic and efficient to use in the long term.

Power Markers for MindManager version 2 was released on the Olympic web site last week, and addresses this exact problem. Power Markers enables you to design effective dashboard maps by focusing on projects and overviews in the map, and letting Power Markers compile the lists in a side window. So you get two views of the same subject - a graphical overview as a map, and a set of sorted lists that work as shortcuts to any part of the map, even the deeply buried areas. Power Markers calculates lists dynamically, and can show you lists like "unfinished items due this week" without you needing to manually deduce and assign that status.

There is also a free white paper about the design of dashboard maps, which defines the seven key factors that make a map into a dashboard map - no subscription required!

Power Markers v2 breaks new ground in the business model for add-ins. Most extensions with real value have a price tag attached, so you have to open your wallet for a second time - and while MindManager remains the gold standard in mind mapping desktop software, it could never be accused of being cheap. But Power Markers Standard edition is free to use, and does not require a license key. The Standard edition supports up to 15 lists per map, which is plenty for many applications. The download includes two template dashboard designs that need only 15 lists. To use more than 15 lists requires a license key, but you can make that decision when you get to that level, rather than being pressured by a time-limited trial.

A dashboard map is a snapshot of a process, and the design of the dashboard sets out the key staging points in that process. At one level, it is like a sophisticated version of the "Whack a Mole" arcade game, where your job is to keep hitting the moles down as they pop up. When no more appear, your project or process is either finished, or someone pulled the plug.

If you are an experienced MindManager user, the sense of control over a map that is provided by the Power Markers Hot Lists is quite a revelation. Your maps quickly divide into two types - the ones that use Power Markers, and the ones that don't. They each have a very different feel to them. You don't need them everywhere, but in places where you do, they can literally transform the usability of a map.

If you use a defined process with your clients or colleagues, and can profile the status of a situation or project in 15 lists or less, then Power Markers v2 gives you a simple way to document and share your expertise for free. Over the coming months I hope to publish some more dashboard templates, and would be very glad to share examples from others too.

I would like to thank everyone who took part in the version 2 beta and took the time to send suggestions and feeback. Here are the links again:

• The white paper on designing dashboards with MindManager
• Download Power Markers from the Olympic web site (requires MindManager 7 or 8 for Windows)
• Power Markers on Prezi, for a little light entertainment!

Getting the measure of “mind maps”

One aspect of information maps or “mind maps” produced by mind mapping software is the wide range of uses, and the variety of maps that can be produced. Given this diversity, is there a common way to profile them?

Trying to measure things helps us to improve them, even if it’s not a very scientific or accurate measure.  An “Information Dependency” (or “D”) factor for maps can be estimated as

D = H / P

where

• H is the amount of subject information that still remains in the author’s Head (or heads) after creating the map,  and
• P is the amount of “standalone” subject information that has been captured on Paper (or on the screen).

The ratio D indicates how dependent the map is on information, knowledge and context that is available only to the authors, requiring supporting explanations if anyone else needs to understand it.

A high value for D means the primary role of the map is as a reminder or aide memoire. High-D maps often use plenty of images, colour coding and single-word topics. The structure is not especially important. The map may be a short term brainstorm, or a revision aid, or a step in the process of understanding a complex situation or problem. All of these are perfectly valid uses for mind maps. Note that high-D maps need not necessarily be the work of just one person. It is often said that the best way to achieve “buy-in” for a map is to involve others in its creation. What this does is increase the size of the audience who understand the goals of the map, and for whom it is a reminder of discussions, negotiations and consensus. Collaborating with others doesn’t necessarily change a high-D map into a low-D map. High-dependency maps are, by definition, not suitable for sharing with an unfamiliar audience without any guidance. They can sow the seeds of confusion and create barriers to understanding.

By contrast, low-dependency maps are designed to get as much of the subject information as possible into the map, and leave as little as possible in the author’s heads. Low-D maps have a lower apparent “information density” because they make fewer assumptions and use less jargon. (Jargon is any form of abbreviation for a trusted audience - not just technical terms). Low-D maps use fewer images, and their design is often more influenced by style than by trying to code meaning. They have a clear message and structure, and stronger patterning. They are used for navigation, presentations and overviews, and are often limited in size. For non-mapping audiences, the presentation format usually needs to conform to a passive environment, e.g. a static image of a map in a slide or on a page. This takes away the interactive navigation that would allow a larger map to be used. However, several of the vendors now offer interactive viewers that work in a web browser.

As a map author, it can be very difficult to tell the difference between your low-D and high-D maps. Everything looks like low-D to you.  When you read something, you automatically add your own meaning to it, which is hard to discriminate from the original text. To check whether your map really has the low dependency factor that you hope it has, you have to test it on others. Or you can leave it until you have forgotten the contents and context, and review it again yourself in a few years time. You may be surprised at how a brilliantly insightful map becomes less than obvious when far removed from its context.

Which is better, high-D or low-D? Of course, neither is. They both offer value in their own ways, although a high-D map where low-D would be expected will cause problems.

So here’s an interesting question – in fact, quite a curious one. How many of the leading mind mapping software vendors use low-D maps to communicate real information on their web sites? By this, I don’t mean showing a picture of a map, or examples of how you might use one, but actually using a map to convey key messages and navigate resources. I have not searched extensively, but a quick tour of the leading names shows that hardly any seem to use their own products to communicate with us on the main pages of their site. Why is that? Collaboration is a strong theme in mind mapping software at the moment. Selling a concept is collaboration for mutual benefit – important messages need to be conveyed, understanding achieved and action taken - yet there seems to be little confidence in using maps to support this. I don’t only want to see examples of what I might be able to do with the product if I invest enough time – I want to see it in action (conceptually and physically) in front of me, dealing with the comprehension issues that accompany any new proposition.

I would love to hear the rational explanations of why maps are not suitable, not appropriate, not technologically practical, not representative, not what people expect, too niche, too radical, not proven and so on… these are surely the exact barriers that users of the products face within their own organisations. The industry is keen to move on from mind mapping, but actions speak louder than words, and one conclusion to be drawn from a brief visit to the shop fronts is that the value of visual mapping software is something that users create and consume personally. We should be trying harder to widen that restriction.

Or, if you are a vendor and use low-D maps to communicate on your web site, please feel free to share them here!

Solving the "single-parent" issue in mind maps

One of the fundamental characteristics of trees is that topics in a map can have one and only one parent topic (apart from the central topic, which has none). If a node has more than one parent, then the diagram is not a tree, but a network.

Networks are flexible and useful, while trees require more discipline and organisation. They reward this effort by being better at focusing and summarising, because they can be collapsed.

The "single parent issue" frequently appears as an ambiguity in the "best" way to arrange topics - there are occasions where a topic clearly belongs under two different headings at the same time, and needs to be viewed in different ways at different times.

Suppose you are writing a specification for a new project. Starting at the highest level, you can set out the major objectives of the project, then break them down into areas and specific outcomes. But in the real world, projects are never perfectly defined and completely executed. The specification will probably include things that must be done, things that are optional, and things that would be nice if we have spare time, which we never do. The specification is conditional - it is a superset of what might actually happen, and important modifiers are embedded throughout the document.

For the purposes of communicating the project and keeping the detail in context, a top-down description is natural and helpful. But for those who are familiar with the project, this top-down contextual description gets in the way. What they really need is a view of the essential, optional and would-be-nice items so that they can prioritise their work. But if the project specification were drawn up this way, by grouping like items together, it would be much more difficult to get an overview and to interpret the context of a specific "would be nice" item.

This is the "single parent issue" in action. A specific item, such as a project outcome, rightfully belongs both in the context of the wider project, and in the context of its implementation priority. Both views are needed at different stages in the project, and each masks the other, so that living with only one is not easy. There are many other ways to label and group the actions in a project - who is doing them, when they are being done and so on. You can see how databases got invented.

Mind mapping software typically deals with this graphically, as this is a principle of mind mapping. Topics belonging to groups that overlay the organisation of the main tree are marked up with the same markers to represent their group memberships. Colour coding or symbols are used to trigger mental association. If two items in a list of ten are coloured red, then it is natural to assume that they are red for the same reason, and share some common characteristic implied by their colour. You can see at a glance where the red items are, and zoom in on them.

Well, I say "see at a glance". This is only viable if your map is small enough to be seen at a glance. Perversely, this is less likely to be true for electronic maps than pen-and-paper ones. Electronic maps tend to be larger, and rarely viewed or even viewable all at once - which is the value that software brings. A mark-up technique that relies on visual recognition and navigation gets cumbersome if you have to surf the map to find all the instances of a particular marker. There is every chance that you will miss a couple, or get sidetracked on the way.

Mindjet's MindManager has a "Power Filter" tool that allows you to choose markers, then hides everything except the matching topics and their parents. This keeps some of the context of each qualifying topic, but the output is not so easy to work with, and you still need to manually surf a large map to check all the instances. It can also hide related information and surrounding context that could be useful when reviewing the map.

The Power Markers for MindManager add-in from Olympic solves this issue by creating an always-in-view lists of topics organised by marker, so that you can simultaneously see the information in your map grouped in more than one way. In the map window, you can see your specification document arranged as a nicely-organised hierarchy. In the "Hot List" window you can also see topics grouped by their markers, regardless of where they are in the map. Clicking on an item in the Hot List takes you to that part of the map. You don't need to sacrifice your "big picture" to zoom in to selected details. For example, you can see all the "must do" features of your project in one place, and focus on that list, returning to the context of the bigger map when you need to.

Power Markers Hot List (click for full sized image)

This technique is simple on the surface, but actually reveals a lot about the ergonomics of using mapping software. When you are drafting out the big ideas, the map workspace is where your thinking takes shape. The process of building a structure to which detail can be added inevitably brings new insights and ideas. But when you have a working map that you are comfortable with, you more often need to drill straight into specific details to make progress with the project. Many times I have experienced the annoyance of knowing that there is a certain topic in a large map (e.g. with a hyperlink and login details on it), but having to spend time hunting for it, because the navigation from the top level was not actually as clear as I thought it was. Being able to see key topics and go to them in one click provides a wormhole straight to the frequently-used or currently active parts. This spares you the torture of picking through a map that made perfect sense when you wrote it, but seems to have rearranged itself since!

For MindManager 7 and 8 users, you can get a copy of the above map and experiment with it yourself:

Download Power Markers Demo map

There are some subtleties about using markers to ensure items get included in a list of peers, as opposed to using them to visually highlight something in the map itself. The separate Hot List approach means that you can mark topics in a low-key way or even invisibly, while still accessing them as a group. For maps with lots of coded information in them, this avoids the "Christmas tree" effect where the sheer volume of icons and colour coding starts to distract from the flow of the text.

How does this actually solve the "single parent" issue? In the map, a topic can only appear once, under one heading. But in the Hot List, the same topic might appear several times under different headings, controlled by the markers that are applied to it.

Response to Peter Abrahams' "four generations" article

Peter Abrahams of IT-Director.com recently posted an article, also commented upon by Chuck Frey, arguing that collaborative mind mapping software represents a fourth generation of evolution of mind mapping technology. I don't agree with this interpretation, and here's why.

The first generation, pen and paper (or whiteboard), is still the preferred medium for many occasions, so is not outdated or superseded by electronic versions.

The second generation is electronic implementation of mind maps with computer software. This is worthy of being regarded as a different generation, because it builds on the concepts of the first, but adds fundamental capabilities that did not exist in the first. Specifically, the ability to expand and collapse information allowed us to deal with ten, twenty or a hundred times more information than could be sensibly managed in a physical form. This meant that mind map visualisations could be used in previously inaccessible or impractical areas, and allowed mind maps to become serious knowledge management tools. All the other features of electronic mind mapping, such as attaching files and links, or real-time collaboration, do not change this basic premise. We could (and still do) collaborate in real time with first generation technology; you don't need the Internet for that. Agreed, you can now collaborate at a distance, but this is a convenience, not a fourth generation. I think that Peter's third and fourth generations of mind mapping software are enhancements to the second, and not new generations.

So what will the third generation look like? I hope it will be an "unbundling" of mind mapping technology, and an escape from the silos of information that dedicated "mind mapping" tools are creating. The feature sets of many mind mapping tools are overloaded with import and export capabilities, which itself tells a story. They expend just as much effort trying to integrate with "normal" technology as they do on exploiting the fundamental power of visualisation. You could say they have a stereotypical English persona: "Sorry, I'm a mind map. Sorry." I look forward to the day when electronic mind mapping stops apologising, ceases to be a parallel universe, and is just one of the choices we have to access and manage information in a variety of activities. Mind Mapping software clients are to mind mapping what e-mail clients are to everyday work; I don't want all my e-mails grouped together inside an e-mail application, I want them embedded in whatever project or piece of work they relate to, in whatever visual format that may take. I want to be able to have an e-mail conversation from within a mind map, without going through technological hoops trying to get two separate applications to liase with each other. I want to be able to click the "mind map view" tab in Google, Word or PowerPoint. While we have standalone mind mapping applications, this will not happen.

Mind mapping technology is the third generation, not more sophisticated mind mapping applications. I hope!

Spiral Presentation Maps and Virtual Donuts

Software mind maps are frequently used and abused as a presentation tool, as a refreshing alternative to endless bullet points. Done well, they can make complex concepts much clearer. Done badly, they can alienate even the friendliest of audiences.

A key advantage of software mind maps over other presentation tools is what happens below the waterline of your presentation iceberg. 90% of the value of a presentation is created in the preparation. The 10% that the audience sees is merely the final flourish. If there is little or nothing below the waterline, your iceberg will capsize at the slightest push. PowerPoint® hardly helps at all when it comes to building foundations, as most of the features are aimed at the part the audience sees. Software mind maps offer fewer visual tricks, but are much more helpful in structuring and developing your presentation, because you can visualise and verify the relationships between the concepts that you want to communicate. A presentation prepared from a mind map is likely to be far better thought out than one prepared straight to bullet points.

There are a "few rules of thumb" that help with most business presentations:

• Use an inductive rather than a deductive approach; tell your audience what your conclusion is, then justify it, instead of presenting a trail of clues followed by a big surprise
• Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you have told them
• Most presentations overrun, so use a strategy that ensures you get your key points across even if you get cut short
• Aim your presentation at the right audience, so that the call to action is compatible with their remit
• Leave them wanting to know slightly more, rather than worn down by exhaustive detail.

Most of the map-based presentations I have seen have started on a step-by-step walk through the topics of a map, drilling straight down to the first great-great-grandchild of the first main topic and crawling onwards from there. This usually cancels out the benefits of tree structures as a way to encapsulate big ideas first, then break them down into more detail only later when the audience is warmed up and receptive.

There is no single template for a map-based presentation that would work in all cases, but there are some principles that will help many:

• Always use statements and not headings in a presentation map. The topics are your bullet points, and will be the written record of your presentation. Headings alone will be meaningless without the words. Provided you don't make the mistake of simply reading out the map to your snoozing audience, statements give them the chance to scan ahead, which they love to do - so that they get an idea of how the whole thing fits together. Some presenters don't like scanning ahead because they think it distracts attention. If the audience is prone to distraction, they will distract themselves with anything that moves. It's better that they distract themselves with reading your presentation than with what is happening in the corridor.
• Use the structure of the map to address different levels of audience, so that you don't have to reveal more than they really need. Software mind mapping tools will let you show or hide different levels of topics. Provided you use statements instead of headings, this lets you "layer" your presentation very effectively. Think about the map as a set of donut-shaped rings. The ring nearest the centre of the map is for your executive audience, who have short attention spans and grasp big ideas quickly. The next ring is for management, who are going to need a better understanding of the implications in order to deliver it. The outer ring is for the people who actually do the work, who will need real details. The true benefits of the tree structure become evident here, because you can position detail in the context of bigger ideas.
• When presenting, start at the one o'clock main topic and walk through your map in a spiral, addressing the executive level first, then the management level, then the detail if it is appropriate. This takes you on a complete tour of your map in at least three passes, which helps your audience feel comfortable from the outset about the scope of your presentation, and critically, the way it is represented by your map. This might disappoint the few who enjoy suspense and surprises, so it is up to you as a presenter to make it entertaining and engaging in other ways, instead of by playing with the content. That's like playing with food, and you can remember being yelled at for that. If your audience is still with you when you complete your tour through the management level, then they are ready for the detail. If you have already lost their good will, or are running out of time, then more detail would not have helped and could even have set you back.

This template gives you some ideas on structuring the content, and the kinds of information that you might include at the different levels. The numbers on the topics represent the presentation order.

So when using software mind maps to prepare and deliver presentations, use statements, translate different audience levels to layers, and develop a spiral route through your map to keep your audience on track. And don't forget the donuts.

Mindomo raises the bar for mind mapping software

The last couple of months have seen the launch of several new Web-based mind mapping software tools. Chuck Frey predicted that we would see more this year. The recent launch of the beta version of Mindomo from EXswap is a new and welcome addition to the world of mind mapping software, raising the bar significantly for both Web- based and desktop software providers.

Mindomo is a Web-based mind mapping software tool that runs in your browser, with the maps being stored on their server. But what distinguishes Mindomo in this growing field is genuine desktop-quality functionality. Pretty much everything you need from basic desktop software is there - rich formatting, curved lines, images and symbols, relationships, notes fields, task data, drag and drop editing, Web hyperlinks, and import from Mindjet MindManager. Clearly a lot of thought and work has gone into it. But rather magically, you don't need to download or install anything. You only need a Web browser with a Flash player. If you are a corporate user with a locked-down desktop and an active IT police force, this is a highly attractive proposition - especially with the elimination of issues such as upgrades, service packs, multiple location licensing, platform locking, and synchronising files between your desktop and laptop. All these things become history. Most business users these days have a desktop and a laptop, and an increasing number have both Microsoft and Macintosh platforms. I even heard a rumour that Eric Mack was going to get a Mac...

What is scary for desktop software publishers is that straight out of the box, Mindomo is multi-platform and enables collaborative working at no cost. The challenge of persuading your colleagues to purchase and install desktop software so that they can work with you has been eliminated, with few compromises on functionality. No more "read-only" viewers for one-sided collaboration. You can simply create a joint account on Mindomo Free edition and access each other's maps from anywhere. The basic version is free, but there are other (purchasable) editions that provide secure connections or even installation on your own server for security-conscious corporate users. This approach is a critical distinction between "free" and "Open Source"; Mindomo is free to use at one level, but you can migrate to a commercial and contractual relationship where you need to. Open Source will always remain in a grey area for many commercial organisations.

Almost as a by-product, Mindomo creates a visual "Wiki" where users can collaborate on shared maps, and can publish templates and examples for anyone to use. I don't think I am alone in regarding Wikis as full of potential in theory, but rather awkward and to understand and use in practice. On Mindomo, a shared account acts as a Wiki where you can control the membership.

In the article about using mind mapping software to map out events, a few readers asked if there was a template map available. Here is the template on the Mindomo site. If you create a free Mindomo account, you can edit this map and save your own private copy of it, or publish an amended version for others to access, which is all rather cool.

Edit this map on-line now!

As a beta, there are of course some features still "under development" - but based on the quality of this beta, I don't doubt that EXswap will deliver them.

Mindomo Web site: www.mindomo.com

From Beyond Crayons to Beyond Mind Mapping

Just today, I read yet another conversation in a bulletin board about the merits (or otherwise) of "mind mapping software" versus Buzan's "Mind Mapping®". As always, there were supporters on both "sides", the Mind Mapping® fans preferring the immediacy and creativity of hand-drawn maps to the sterile, slow and technology-dependent world of software. Who could disagree?

To me this seems like unconditionally declaring whether you prefer to walk or drive. If you are going to the local shop for a loaf of bread, walking is the healthy option. If you are visiting somewhere sixty miles away, walking is unlikely to be a serious contender, regardless of your preferences. So some preferences should be conditional to avoid being dogmas.

I prefer to draw Mind Maps® by hand, but I prefer "mind mapping" software if I want to draw something that needs to be shared and frequently updated and revised. Only those who (understandably) mistake mind mapping software as a tool for drawing Mind Maps® might declare an unconditional preference. There are a few software packages that aim to recreate Mind Maps®, but they are outnumbered by tools that simply aim to provide fast and easy graphical organisation of information.

Unfortunately the industry seems to be stuck with the term "mind mapping software" because that is where most of these tools originated from, and there is no other category that is as clearly recognised by the reviewers or potential users. But this does a disservice to both techniques, by

• implying that a Mind Map® is merely a tree,
• implying that a tree-shaped diagram must be a Mind Map®, and
• inviting misleading comparisons between Mind Mapping® and mind mapping software.

For this reason, I am changing the name of my Blog from "Beyond Crayons" to "Beyond Mind Mapping", to make it clearer that the use of mind mapping software is quite distinct from Mind Mapping®. Not better, not worse, but designed to do different things.

A Simple Template for Visualising Events

The idea that a map represents your relationship with a subject (rather than the subject itself) is worth a whole posting by itself, but before sending everyone to sleep with the theory, it might be more useful to first present a practical application. It leads to a clearer variation of the project map template that captures a simpler view of the relationship between an event and its stakeholders.

Many business people are primarily concerned with events that change the status quo. This could be launching a product or service, commissioning a process, solving a problem, delivering a physical event (such as a seminar), or establishing a new behaviour. Learning, information and knowledge all play a role within that context, either before (in skills and training required) or afterwards (in lessons learned and experience gained). The relationship between an individual or team and a finite event includes responsibilities, actions, expectations, outcomes and consequences for the individual or team.

One of the differences between software maps and pencil & paper maps is that the majority of software tools only support horizontal text. Today, many of the software maps that you look at are not truly "radiant" but are horizontally banded and lead the eye left and right -  like scanning the horizon for interesting features rather than looking in the sky or sea. This is a restriction that we can also exploit as a feature. If we also adopt a left-to-right convention, we have a convenient way of visualising concepts that naturally converge to a single critical point before diverging again.

I suspect you're already way ahead of me here. If we make the centre of a map represent an event, then on the left we can write down the converging factors that lead to the event, and on the right we can show the divergent consequences of that event occurring. This gives us a flexible graphic depicting the whole of our relationship with an event:

(Click for larger image)

For example, let's suppose that you are the director of a mail order company, and you are getting feedback from customers receiving parcels that appear to have been delivered by Ace Ventura. Readers in the UK will know which delivery service I mean. So changing your courier is a promising long term solution. The Event template structure helps us to think about and organise our ideas in several areas:

• The "defining moment" at which the changeover can be described as complete - how this point is characterised
• The conditions that describe that point, which are drawn on the left
• The resources and actions that lead to those conditions, also drawn on the left
• The implications that arise from completion, which are drawn on the right. Not all of them need to be positive, provided they are not unanticipated
• How the outcomes contribute to other strategies, also drawn on the right

(Click for a larger image)

This also gives us simple way to correlate the consequences listed on the right with the actions and decisions on the left, to ensure that we will deliver on expectations. This is hardly a new idea, but formal statement and verification of requirements is not often used in general business. All we want is a simple visual device that can easily be explained to almost anyone and conveys a real sense of the consequences of decisions and actions.

The beauty of using an expansible tree diagram is that there is a place for all the detail you could ever need, without losing the birds-eye view of the most important factors for discussion and presentation purposes. It creates space for some of the more intangible results of completing a project, especially where they lie outside the direct remit of the project team (i.e. are not actions on the left).

An "event" could be a project outcome, problem situation, hypothetical opportunity, educational achievement or anything that has a sense of completion or a point at which a change occurs. The same basic visualisation can be used to communicate, negotiate and deliver anything from buying a new printer to reorganising a department.