During daily or weekly reviews of your Next Action list from FreeMind|GTD, you’ll need to edit your GTD mindmap (the master source) to either add, edit, or delete Next Actions. Here’s a simple tip to make it easier find a Next Action in a large mindmap.
Here’s a mindmap template I’ve found useful for managing product development activities. The right side of the mindmap contains the typical ‘phase’ activities that lead from concept to launch of a product. The left side of the diagram has administrative items like key milestones, documentation, and schedules. Read the rest of this entry »
This article describes a “Getting Things Done” (GTD) system based around FreeMind Mindmaps and FreeMind|GTD Next Action lists. Read the rest of this entry »
Projects that have a goal of transforming some aspect of an organization need to be managed across various functional groups. Despite the importance of the transformation, inertia and competing priorities will require extra effort to move the project forward (since the transformation is often viewed as just another task on the list…). It is not enough to have an overall project plan; daily follow-up is often required to ensure next actions happen. This article shows how mind maps can be used to help connect the project plan with next actions from each of the functional groups. Read the rest of this entry »
Prioritizing a list of objectives can be difficult when you’re the only decision maker. It is much hard when doing it in a team. Using a technique like the ‘Swap Sort’ can help put some structure around decision making- something often needed to move things forward. Read the rest of this entry »
Cause and effect diagrams were pioneered by Kaoru Ishikawa as a systematic method to think through all the possible causes leading to an effect (usually undesired). Ishikawa diagrams are typically drawn as a ‘fishbone’ where causes (depicted as the ‘bones’) are represented hierarchly. This arrangement promotes considering causes that may not be obvious or might be dismissed prematurely. This has been described as the Completeness Method. They can be really helpful when tackling issues that you not have faced before. Read the rest of this entry »