Mind mapping software

[jbeatty]

gescober has recommended Mindjet's MindManager. Has anyone else got recommendations for their choices?

Anyone love or hate the free options out there like FreeMind?

[jbeatty]

I just noticed this thread on the tools section actually does have a few suggestions in it.

http://www.seilevel.com/messageboard...highlight=mind

Personally I was not a fan of using Visio for this. Mind mapping has to be light on its feet for me, and it didn't feel that when I tried it.

[Dan]

I just noticed this thread on the tools section actually does have a few suggestions in it.

http://www.seilevel.com/messageboard...highlight=mind

Personally I was not a fan of using Visio for this. Mind mapping has to be light on its feet for me, and it didn't feel that when I tried it.

okay but your question from the other thread didn't ask specifically for "mind mapping" or note taking tools just asked about "success using tools during elicitation sessions."

visio works just fine if the session in which you are eliciting has a specific work product to be produced that is of a type easily captured in Visio (which was my context).

soapbox aside, good old pen and paper work well for me, i can do real time text, diagrams, parking lot, etc. granted it's not electronic, which would be optimal, but the experience of turning those hand-written notes has a value (to me) in that it provides me an extra "rev" through the content (where I transform it into electronic format) to refine my thoughts and questions on the topic, and it gives me a chance to critique my elicitation techniques and improve them as I see where I may have not fleshed out my notes enough on a topic, so I have feedback about specific areas that need more detail, but also I can see patterns of my elicitation an ote taking where I might be too high-level.

I know it seems cavemanish to work this way, but I wouldn't do without the extra rev(s) if you paid me. Capturing notes electronically from the outset is great if you go back over them and extract what is relevant to the go forward work products, otherwise (and i've seen this from many folks) you get a big (electronic) file of brain dump and stream of consciousness that has a lot of stuff in there--good stuff and useless stuff--i guess what i'm saying is whatever technique allows you to produce clean, meaningful notes that are consumable by the targeted audience for purposes valuable to the overall effort is fine by me.

[jbeatty]

okay but your question from the other thread didn't ask specifically for "mind mapping" or note taking tools just asked about "success using tools during elicitation sessions."

Yep, this thread is specifically about suggestions on mind mapping software.

I just wanted to point others to some specific recommedations in that thread on this topic that I had missed originally.

Anyway....paper and pencil can work to a degree. But last night night I was wishing I had a whiteboard handy to brainstorm on because paper was too limiting. I want software not so I can produce something that someone else can consume, but simply so I can organize my own thoughts, and if needed, I can radically move things around quickly - which I cannot do on paper.

[Justin.Burrows]

gescober has recommended Mindjet's MindManager. Has anyone else got recommendations for their choices?

Anyone love or hate the free options out there like FreeMind?

I am crazy-go-nuts-in-love with FreeMind, almost as much as I am with SnagIt, which is saying something. Light, fast, excellent quick-keys, drag and drop, export, you name it, FreeMind has it. It's one of the few elicitation programs that I feel comfortable using real-time on a projector.

And it's free.

Seriously, I can have freemind open and working before I figure out which sub sub sub menu I'm supposed to click on in Visio.

The only time I've been let down by FreeMind was when I couldn't get it to automatically create a map of network drive folders (the first step when doing "CSI: Requirements"-type projects, where you're looking for traces of existing resource docs in various states, formats, and locations).

[Justin.Burrows]

And to be clear:

*ahem*

As a Mind Mapper, Visio sucks like the pristine vacuum of deepest space.

[gescober]

I tried to use Freemind a few years ago, and I could never get it to work on my laptop. I really wanted it to work because I didn't want to spend the money on MindManager.

If you really want to leverage Mind Mapping software during elicitation sessions, you ought to try it with a tablet PC. One of the best software architects I know introduced me to Mind Mapping when I saw him facilitate a meeting with MindManager and his tablet PC. The ease with which he could take notes and arrange concepts and use this to facilitate his meeting was very impressive.

[ddelancey]

I hope I'm not hijacking the thread....

For the BA newbie in the group, what exactly do you use mind mapping software for?

[jbeatty]

Update: I installed FreeMind (http://freemind.sourceforge.net/) at home (sinceI had no whiteboard). I outlined half my paper on paper, and I outline the other half with a mind map - it worked great! I spent literally NO time reading about how to use it, and I got what I needed. There are lots of features I don't know about yet, but it did the basics quick for me. Though I did glance at the help - neat, it's a mind map!

[Justin.Burrows]

I hope I'm not hijacking the thread....

For the BA newbie in the group, what exactly do you use mind mapping software for?

Mind Mapping is, for me, a tool to quickly organize a lot of concepts, especially when you are working from a very high level. Good mind mapping software makes it very easy to link, unlink, and relink concepts, and rejigger hierarchies very quickly and fluidly. You can also use flags to determine size, difficulty, priority, or scope inclusion/exclusion

Areas where I would use Mind Mapping
- Scope Meetings
- Meetings where I don't know jaque squatte about the subject (the maps are impressive and also buy you time to figure out what's going on)
- System identification
- Any type of "discovery" meeting where you are trying to discover any blind spots

Areas where I would be less likely to use Mind Mapping:
- When interactions/behaviors between systems, concepts are the core topic (though a mind map can help)
- Process documentation
- Use Case documentation


I like mind mapping for the same reason I like wikis, it works on an "Elicit then organize" basis. And you can build up a nice-looking diagram...

frinstance: I cooked up the following in about 6 minutes:



Which you can export into text

So you can easily export the info into another document.

Like so (Straight export X-ed and V-ed):

Mind Mapping Thread

• MM Media
  • Software
    • Free Options
      • FreeMind
    • Pay Options
      • Visio
        • Bad for MindMapping
      • MindMap
        • Costs Money
  • Paper
    • It works
    • Easy to view and use
    • Less Hassle
    • Sometimes less
• MindMapping Format
  • Links
  • Fluid
  • Good For Brainstorming
  • Hierarchy
  • Pritty