Meeting Management
The stages of meeting management are the preparation, sending of the agenda, the meeting itself and the aftercare. In preparing a meeting several possibilities are available, such as importing information from MS Excel (by for example the use of add-ins), and inserting hyperlinks to relevant files and Internet sites. An export to Microsoft Word produces a clear and usable invitation to the participants.
On occasion MindManager does not appreciate it when a linked Excel file is not found. Then only will task manager allow Excel to be shut down. This unfortunately remains a known issue which is also being discussed at various forums, and hopefully will be a thing of the past in the next minor upgrade.
During the meeting, MindManager can update tasks, responsible persons, times and priorities. By using the ‘Powerfilter’ one can zoom into specific attributes. This is exceedingly useful when the mind map ‘grows’, and relevant information needs to be retrieved quickly.
After the meeting an add-in, for example, can facilitate an export to Excel to include a task list by responsible person and potentially even a Gantt-chart – all in all making for a useful meeting report!
MindManager itself does not have any direct ties with Excel but there are interesting and useful add-ins on the market to export information to an accessible Excel format. The standard Excel feature within MindManager does not allow for this functionality. This can only establish a link within the mind map using an existing Excel range.
Mindjet research indicates that 35-40% of time savings is arrived at in the area of meeting management by using MindManager. Some hands-on experience is certainly desirable before actually reaching such a savings. However, what is also achieved is a greater involvement and commitment with respect to appointments!
Project Management
Thinking back to the various project evaluations we performed, the true causes of the problems that occurred almost always happened in the early stages, and were in 95% of the cases to be attributed to communication issues.
The inability to quickly pair and identify the correct information, the structuring of the business case, linking the costs, and then to add-in the information from the mind and share that in order to arrive at a common picture of the starting point.
When mind mapping is used in the initial phase many problems are very well avoidable, not only at the start but even during the term of a project. The main reasons for this are the simplification of communication from a combined viewpoint, facilitating of decision-making, easier management of phase transitions, and the ability to focus on the critical path that leads to achieving the main business case goals.
Mind Mapping can help prevent the management of action lists as opposed to project objectives. Focusing on planning is simplified. Mind mapping can be very important with follow-up and with the various elements of project management - think of risk management and the creation of dashboards. A mind map literally creates the same picture of the situation for all involved.
If we then also can export these mind maps to for example JVC Gantt or MS Excel with the aHa! 2Way XLS, and even to MS Project (which admittedly is often “too heavy”) then -according to Mindjet- we can not only achieve a time savings of 30-35% but also save a lot of money because of the prevention of many problems down the line. aHa!-add-ins are available via the
aHa!Webshop or via resellers in: France
MMD; Belgium
ACI and England
Cabre. As with the other areas of application, the ability to export to MS Word and MS PowerPoint is an equally popular feature within project management.
MindManager 8 offers all necessary and desirable project functionalities, even a feature that computes the task map data. It is possible to add topics that represent the tasks and their execution time. When these are linked (‘relationship’) to indicate the task sequence, and start and end data are indicated, MindManager will calculate the last possible starting time and earliest ending time for each task. In order to visualize this with a Gantt chart, the aHa!2Way XLS add-in of MS Project for example would be necessary.
Clever features like filtering, adding a spreadsheet or table into the mind map and/or online accessibility are no problem for MindManager 8.
An application example of MindManager is Prince2, a VTS program that besides all P@ forms also charts the “flow” for the user and assists with ‘checks and balances’:
The phases within a project are specified in a coordinating mind map, while underlying mind maps can be made for each project phase. It is simpler to just complete the Prince2 forms as a mind map, and then to export them.
The same can of course be done for PMBOK.
Another example is the added value of project reporting using MindManager. Exporting this onto the web gives all those involved real-time access to the project’s status. Another great solution for project teams in disparate departments is to use the virtual project office “Work of Minds” which is based on the open source application “dot-project”, and even has a work-flow module that allows you to define your own project approach, input mind maps from MindManager, and automatically place them into the workflow.
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