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Do you want to be able to easily identify where the risks and benefits lie within your business?

Then your answer is simple – create a Mind Map.

By developing a Mindmap, you can create a helicopter view of your business. This enables you to capture, organise and analyse what works well and what doesn’t within your business. Through using our tips below you will easily be able to identify where the risks and benefits are with your business.

5 tips for your Mindmap

  1. Download FreeMind from the Brain in a Box website.
  2. Create a mindmap of your business. Using the ins and enter keys, you can quickly build your map. Check out Documentation under the Help menu for more detailed guidance.
  3. Insert an Icon on different branches of your mind map.
    By adding icons to nodes (each branch on the map is called a node) you can easily analyse and categorise different items of your mindmap. Create a key to record your description for each icon for easy reference (see the example at right). By using icons, you can quickly identify, say, which areas of your business work well, which bits are inconsistent, and so on. This can help you to understand where the risks lie in your business.
    Mind Map Key
  4. Add more detail to your mindmap
    In addition to capturing and organising the functions that define your company you can add more detail ‘behind’ a node by adding a note. This will ensure that the common problem of struggling to remember why you wrote something will be eliminated. Once a node has a note behind it, the note icon will be displayed. To add a note, simply type in the Note window at the bottom of your screen. Can’t see it? Select View Note Window from the menu.
  5. Manage What’s on Your Screen by Expanding and Collapsing Branches
    To modify the view that is displayed on your screen, you can expand and collapse the branches of your mindmap. This function is helpful when you only want to display certain components of your mindMap.

To expand or collapse a branch of your mindmap simply press the space bar on your keyboard whilst the node is highlighted or click on the node text with your mouse.

Below is an example of what is displayed when a mndmap is expanded or collapsed.

The Administration branch collapsed;

Mindmap collapsed

The Administration branch is now expanded;

Mindmap expanded

Mindmaps can be used in many ways, from defining your business to planning a new project to designing a new product. For example, both our Systems Overview Workshop and the Systems Focus Workshop kick off with the creation of a mind map – it’s the perfect starting point.

If you are interested in what you have read and want to learn more, we give very comprehensive instructions and notes on using mind maps in our Foundation Series Webinars. To book in, just head to the Events page on the Brain in a Box website.