Brainstorming sessions can be powerful ways of developing new ideas and crafting new strategies, both in your work and personal life. The challenge with a brainstorming session is that it’s typically a non-linear process. You jump back and forth between different aspects of the topic until your ideas are exhausted. Capturing the information can be difficult, and standard note-taking doesn’t work effectively.
One approach I’ve used in the past is Mind Mapping. It was popularized by British author Tony Buzan in the 1970’s, and is a way to create a visual diagram about a topic. The major idea is the center of the map, and different aspects of the idea create branches that extend from the topic of the brainstorming session.
I’ve used mind mapping not only for brainstorming, but also for general note-taking. I’ve found that it easily lets me jump back and forth between topics easily and I walk out of the meeting with organized thoughts and notes.
Mind Maps can be works of art – check out this one by Pietro Zanarini. The artistic aspect can really add to the creativity of the process:
But what about those of us (like me) that can’t draw at all?
Actionable Idea: If you want to try your hand at mind mapping, there are a number of free downloadable software packages to try. The one I use is Free Mind. You can download it at the the link I provided. The graphs won’t come out as nice as the one about, but the information you’re able to capture at your next meeting will be invaluable.
If you want to try the process, download this or another mind mapping application and play with it a bit. Then, in your next meeting where you’re trying to capture a bunch of new ideas, see if the mind mapping process helps you.
Photo by Allan Ajifo, license: CC BY 2.0
