Mind mapping for Product Manager
When I embarked on my career as a consultant in one of the Big 4, I was once on-boarded on a project where I have to digitally transform my client's 15-years-old system. I had to comprehend what they were doing currently so that I could provide my suggestions and help them improve.
At that time, I wielded an in-house consulting tool, which had complex navigation and execution. Whereas designing an as-is model and reaching the to-be model exercise looked extremely satisfying, on the contrary, navigating and executing the tool looked an extremely frustrating process, and would never like to go through it again.
Why as-is and to-be models?
These are relatively ancient techniques in the world of consulting, where consultants practice these techniques to achieve a solution. Ultimately, the idea is to create a mind map of the situation at hand and make sense of the complexity in one place, merely like sherlock.
Though not all of us are as intelligent as Sherlock, so we fall prey to such tools. One such tool which I am currently using in my personal projects is the mind mapping technique using MIRO.
In my previous article, I spoke about the Story mapping technique using MIRO. In this article, I will speak about the mind mapping technique using MIRO. This comes way before story mapping. This works at the nascent stage of product management, where the product manager has received a request to create a new feature/product or revamp an old feature/product.
What is a mind mapping technique?
The mind mapping technique is the pictorial representation of the state of the product. It talks about customers, use cases, and features. It can have everything that a product is associated with so that when product manager looks at the map, they have all the information they need to deduce a more convenient solution to a complex problem.
Every so often we fall into the trap of changing the UI of a product, keeping the current process as-is. We fail to identify the opportunity in front of us where we can in fact alter the process this time. Doing it over means another chance to perform things differently this time. That is the essence of product management, where, just like life, this job provides you a second chance.
I use the mind map to consult my business in various scenarios:
- During workshops for better understanding
- As a living document for reference
- To devise new ideas and processes
How to do mind-mapping?
#1 Use Cases
The idea behind every product that we are building or planning to build has stemmed from a strong reason — a strong use case that a business has foreseen. Those use cases should obtain the first entry to the mind map where we list down all the use cases behind building a product. These use cases keep a PM on their toes and remind them of the purpose behind the product. This also generates clarity for all stakeholders involved. If we see a particular use case no longer in use, we can question the product or feature's existence.
#2 Customers
Time and again, we have spoken about why we are building the products. We are building it so that someone can ultimately utilize it. We talk to these customers, understand the pain points, and understand why we need to build the product. Why only this is needed? What about workarounds?
#3 Features
This is a wider umbrella. Lots of things fall under this purview. This talks everything and anything about a product. It branches out into actual features that will go under the product, various integrations from where the data flow in out, data flow out, etc. This is a brilliant way to understand what we already know and what can be improved.
For better understanding: Let us assume a medium scenario. The below illustration might not serve as the complete illustration of how a medium network works. But it will give a fair idea of mind mapping .
I hope this article would have provided you a glimpse and an understanding of how to use mind mapping techniques in product management to build a product that truly creates an impact on society.
