Anita Brook is founder of Accounts Assist a growing firm of Chartered Accountants. She’s been advising small business, sole traders and consultants for 12 years.
Map out your mind for better business
Mind-mapping is basically getting every eventuality of a specific project, or even your business as a whole, on one big piece of paper, allowing you to clearly organise thoughts and reduce the risk of unforeseen problems tripping up a plan. For busy managers and business owners, mind maps provide a simple, yet effective, organisational tool minimising the stress caused by seemingly overflowing workloads.
The process
Starting with a central goal, each cause, effect and route to the end result is then dissected, with every part of the process examined in detail. On paper it looks like a big spider, with each leg representing one element of a project. This visual approach is designed to simplify often complex tasks by clearly ‘mapping out’ a plan in its entirety.
Keep projects on track
A mind map is a great way to guide and measure progress over time. For example, are your priorities still in-line with your efforts? Do people know the customer goals to reach for and are they still heading in the right direction? By referring back to the map at all stages of a project you will ensure that you stay on course.
Involve your team
Using mind-mapping can make planning sessions more enjoyable and infinitely more productive. By involving the whole team you will reap the benefits of multiple views on an issue, plus those involved will be more likely to ‘get on board’ as they will feel part of the process. By putting all the information down, everyone will be able to see where they are now and what’s coming next, minimising the often unwelcome element of surprise.
Get new recruits up to speed
A mind-map is like a blueprint, so if new people join a company, or enter into a project at a later stage, this will help them get up to speed quickly. As the situation is presented visually, the reviewer can immediately see what is involved and how the elements link together, with additional details available in each task or objective.
Pitch perfect
If you’re trying to win new business, or get investors to buy into an idea, presenting in a mind-map format allows your audience to see exactly how you will meet their objectives, avoiding the dull, power point style approach we have all come to dread.
There are countless mind map examples on the Internet as well as software to help you do it on-screen. Some examples include: Illumine training http://www.mind-mapping.co.uk/ and http://www.mindgenius.com/. While useful and great for referring back to, paying for expensive computer programmes is not imperative, a large white board, or massive piece of paper will suffice – especially when creating the map in the first place.
To help get the most out of the process there are training courses available as well as mind-map technique books.
The inventor of mind-mapping, Tony Buzan, has a number of titles on the subject, his most recent being Mind Maps for Business, which talks specifically about the approach in a corporate context. The book is complimented by a website http://www.mindmapsforbusiness.com/, which provides a comprehensive and free-to-access collection of supplementary resources, including mind-map templates.
We all suffer from brain overload from time to time and anything that relieves the pressure has got to be a good thing. Mind-mapping’s just one step on from the all important list, and we all know how good writing one of those can feel when things seem overwhelming! Get out the felt tip pens, clear your desk and try and make some sense of it all.
Tags: Anita Brook, Mind-mapping
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