Mind Mapping A Better WBS

Andrew Makar - September 10, 2009

Dr. Andrew Makar is an IT program manager and is the author of the Microsoft Project Made Easy series. For more project management advice, visit the website TacticalProjectManagement.com.

Estimating Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) ProjectsAtWork

The integration of project management practices and mind mapping tools is still a relatively new concept. Here’s a look at how one mind-mapping solution can help project managers quickly generate a work breakdown structure and calculate a bottom-up estimate.

A quick web search of “mind mapping software” yields more than 94 million results, including several leading providers such as MindJet, FreeMind and iMindMap, among others. However, because the integration of project management and mind-mapping software is still a relatively new concept, only a few software vendors provide support for project management processes. I recently started working with MatchWare MindView 3 and found it offers an impressive set of features for the project manager looking to quickly generate a work breakdown structure (WBS) and calculate a bottom up estimate.

Matchware MindView 3 enables project managers to brainstorm and visualize ideas quickly. It is tailored to the project management practitioner with a set of features that are native to the application and do not require third-party software. The two key features that converted me to a project management MindView evangelist are the WBS creation and the roll-up estimation features.

Traditional mind mapping includes a hub-and-spoke model with branches and nodes. During a recent website …

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Mind Mapping A Better WBS

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