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Introducing "MP4PM-MindmaPping for ProjectManagement" - Part I

Categories: learning, how to, technical project management, strategic and business management, skills, modern learning, checklist, practice, exercise, mind mapping, mind map, mind maps, information gathering, mind mapping tool, software, communication, mind mapping for project management, MP4PM, idea file, project objectives, Education

In our last Mind Mapping article we have given an overview why we think that Mind Mapping is that beneficial for project management. You can find some other articles, blogs and even webinars here at projectmanagement.com where mind mapping is already promoted.
For some reason most of them are relatively old and it seems that this topic has been lacked a bit in the past. I have a personal passion for Mind Mapping in general and for Mind Mapping tools/software and their usage for project management especially and worked with Mindjet MindManager for instance since some years now.

And I am totally convinced that Mind Mapping could be a big help in making the project managers work easier and more efficient.
A survey by Mind Mapping expert Chuck Frey for instance, shows that business users of mind mapping believe their productivity has increased on average by 25%.

Mind mapping is being used across organizations to:

Increase productivity
Enhance meetings
Simplify request for proposals (RFP)
Overview knowledge management
Optimize project management
Improve collaboration and communication
and much more…

In addition i do believe that tool-supported Mind Mapping could be used to support more or less all the PMBoK Guide Processes and ITTO’s in a great way. And this is exactly what we want to realize; therefore we are actually working on an integrated approach which we called "MP4PM - Mind maPping for Project Management".

Starting with this blog we will introduce the most recent features of “MP4PM” over the next few days/weeks while resulting in a comprehensive introduction and overview as a webinar, kicking off a huge webinar series about the usage and how to apply “MP4PM” in your daily project work.

Here are the first two features we want to realize with “MP4PM”:

In our next blog we will not only provide the next two “MP4PM” features; we will also show you the very first deliverable/result of “MP4PM” as a sneak preview, so you can see what to expect in near future. And the bonus is: it is ready to use out of the box for anybody who wants to try. So stay tuned … ;)

=======================================

References/first published here:

http://projectmanagement.plus/en/news/78-ressources/mp4pm/20-introducing-mp4pm-mindmapping-for-projectmanagement-part-i

Posted on: November 30, 2016 08:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

Mind Mapping® for project management – an overview

Categories: learning, how to, technical project management, strategic and business management, competence, giving back, computer based training, checklist, PMBoK Guide, practice, , mind mapping, mind map, mind maps, information gathering, mind mapping tool, software, communication, mind mapping for project management, validate requirements, manage resources, Education

Soon we will start publishing our new, PMBoK guide aligned and Mind Mapping® based project management framework "MP4PM".

And to kick this off we want to first look at the facts why Mind Mapping® in general is a great tool to gather, organize and transfer information and how it could be a help especially in project management efforts by utilizing Mind Mapping® software.

Mind Mapping® is a way of visually representing ideas and information. Just as geographical maps help people see where they’re going and help them anticipate and avoid obstacles, Mind Maps® let people lay out ideas and connect information in a way that helps identify dependencies, connections, and risks.

Mind Mapping® is a powerful technique and the advantages of Mind Maps® are many:

The relative importance of each idea is clearly indicated by how near it is to the center, which clearly features the main idea.
The links between key concepts will be immediately obvious from their proximity and connection to one another. The brain works primarily with key concepts that it links and integrates. Mind Maps® work in the same way, meaning that recall and review will be faster and more effective.
The nature of the Mind Map® structure allows for the easy addition of new information.
Each Mind Map® has its own unique pattern, which further aids recall.
The open-ended nature of the Mind Map® is a great aid to creativity, allowing the brain to make new and exciting connections with ease.
With practice, you'll find Mind Maps® help you to be your best in every thinking situation.


Uses	Benefits
Learning	Reduce those 'tons of work'. Feel good about study, revision and exams. Have confidence in your learning abilities
Overviewing	See the whole picture, the global view, at once. Understand the links and connections
Concentrating	Focus on the task for better results Using all your cortical skills attracts your attention
Memorising	Easy recall 'See' the information in your mind's eye
Organising	Easy recall Be on top of all the details for parties, holidays, projects or any other subject
Presenting	Speeches are clear, relaxed and alive. You can be at your best
Communicating	In all forms with clarity and conciseness
Meetings	From planning to agenda, to chairing, to taking the minutes...the jobs are completed with speed and efficiency
Training	From preparation to presentation, they make the job easier and much faster
Thinking	Having a method to analyze thoughts - almost a 'way station' for them
Negotiating	All issues, your position and maneuverability on one sheet
Brain Blooming	The new brain-storming in which more thoughts are generated and appropriately assessed.

By looking at those use cases and benefits you might think “well, there are a lot of them appearing in project management also, right?” and yes, there are. Since project management is all about gathering information and work with them and also about communication, Mind Mapping® can be utilized for this actions in a great way. But then you may think “well, but all this paper work … and if it is written down, how to reorganize the information if necessary?" (and it will be, right?).

This is when software tools comes in place; software tools which are basing on the Mind Mapping® principles. Using such Mind Mapping® tools has the following six key benefits:

PROFESSIONAL MIND MAPPING SOFTWARE ...

- LET PEOPLE WORK THE WAY THEY THINK

With professional Mind Mapping® software, you can brainstorm and capture ideas in freeform, and then add structure and depth. Drag-and-drop editing and markers let you apply order, connect ideas, and group concepts into themes. Built-in templates often make it easy to bring clarity to important projects, and completed maps give you a more effective way to communicate.

- REDUCES INFORMATION OVERLOAD

Professional Mind Mapping® software lets you organize ideas and information in a single view so you can see connections and draw conclusions quickly. It’s easy to assemble content-rich information maps with attachments and links that let you process information without having to jump between different apps and browsers. You maybe even can even import tasks, email, and contacts from Microsoft Outlook to Mind Maps® to better organize your work life.

- HELPS STRUCTURE BUSINESS, STRATEGIC & PROJECT PLANS

Professional Mind Mapping® software provides deep capabilities for organizing information to drive critical business processes and decision-making. More advanced features can include Guided Brainstorming tools, 2x2 analysis views, budgeting and forecasting tools, and numerous project management features where we look into in detail later on.

- IMPROVES COMMUNICATION

Professional Mind Mapping® software visual format lets you show the big picture and then drill down to display details as needed, all in a single view. Improve meetings by quickly capturing discussion notes and follow-up action items in context. Use priority markers, symbols, and embedded images to highlight the most important points.

- WORKS WITH YOUR EXISTING TOOLS

Professional Mind Mapping® software is integrated with Microsoft and Apple productivity apps, including MS Word, MS PowerPoint, MS Excel, MS Outlook, MS Project, and Apple Keynote and Pages. Individuals can map out their work in the professional Mind Mapping® software, and then publish final reports and proposals in the most appropriate format.

- CAN BE USED ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION

Professional Mind Mapping® software may have an enterprise version which extends the value offering integration with Microsoft SharePoint to enable collective information management and collaboration. With the Enterprise Version people across the organization can use professional Mind Mapping® software intuitive visual frame - work to capture and organize information, then share editable maps so teams can solve problems, prioritize strategies, plan projects, and process information together.

After looking at the Mind Mapping® benefits in general and the advantages of using Mind Mapping® software especially we will know focus on the specific benefits of using the combination of them applied to project management:

Successful project management depends on effective management of expectations and commitments. Mind Mapping® software helps you keep teams in alignment on the decisions and tradeoffs that determine if a project will meet goals and deadlines. Create a blueprint for your project by defining goals, prioritizing issues, capturing stakeholder input, and validating requirements—all in one application.

MIND MAPPING FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Visualize Goals

Clearly defining goals and prioritizing issues means getting input—and more importantly, buy-in—from the entire team. Mind Maps® give project teams a virtual whiteboard for brainstorming where every idea and concern can be surfaced and cataloged. Mind Maps® help teams think visually so they can quickly lay out deliverables and identify any gaps in the plan.

Validate Requirements

Adequately validating requirements is one of the first steps to ensuring project success. Quickly capture stakeholder input in a format that encourages participation. Verify decisions by visually ordering and reordering topics, drilling down to review details, and using priority markers to provoke essential trade-off discussions.

Manage Resources

Use Mind Maps® to create detailed process maps to intelligently allocate resources and identify dependencies. Mind Maps® helps everyone involved see the big picture and all the details in context. And if needed, you can export straight to Microsoft Project and other MS Office products and also the independent and high flexible HTML5 format (can be opened by any web browser!)

Adjust and Optimize

Quickly make adjustments when schedules and resources change. The task roll-up feature shows the overall impact of changes to assignments and dependencies so that everyone can understand (and respond to) the implications of schedules and budgets. Integrated Gantt charts provide a timeline view of your schedule.

Agree on Budgets

Create and manage project budgets in the project Mind Map® alongside priorities and schedules—all in one place. Most professional tools have a feature to quickly set up formulas throughout your map and use the formula editor to add more sophisticated calculations. Conduct “what if” analyses by dragging topics into or out of the formula’s range to immediately adjust the calculations.

Be Prepared

Most of the professional Mind Mapping® tools (like MindManager or XMind for instance) helps you often get started faster with project map templates and pre-built map topics for creating project charters, plans, status, and timelines. Once you create a project, you can save your working Mind Map® as a custom template to guide future work, reducing the time needed to start your next project.

And this is exactly what we want to provide with our “MP4PM – MindmaPping for project management” initiative. Aligned to PMBoK Guide and covering all of the 47 (5^th version) processes and all their related ITTOs!

This will mean that you do not need to build up this project templates on your own; you can use them out of the box or doing some customization related to your own project management processes used in your organization. Tailoring the PMBoK Guide processes for specific project needs becomes very easy this way and even if your company does not rely on PMI’s methodology it still will be very useful (hopefully).

Thank you for taking time reading this first article as a kickoff to the upcoming articles and maybe webinars.

Next time we will introduce our “MP4PM” a bit more in detail and also provide you a “sneak preview” so you can see what to expect in the next weeks, month's and maybe even years. We hope you will like it.

Any feedback is highly appreciated.

=======================================

first published here:

http://projectmanagement.plus/en/news/78-ressources/mp4pm/19-mind-mapping-for-project-management-an-overview

References:
http://www.buzan.com.au/learning/benefits.html
https://www.mindjet.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Managing-Projects-with-MindManager-User-Guide.pdf
https://www.mindjet.com/uses/project-management/

Posted on: November 28, 2016 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

PMBOK® Guide 6th Edition will be released in Q3/2017 - what will change? - UPDATED!

Categories: pmp, study material, learning, talent triangle, skills, competence, re-certification, area of expertise.training, certification, content outline, handbook, PMBoK Guide, prep book, prep course, study plan, practice, exercise, Education

Posted on: October 26, 2016 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

PMBOK® Guide 6th Edition will be released towards the end of 2017 - what will change?

Categories: pmp, study material, learning, talent triangle, skills, competence, re-certification, area of expertise.training, certification, content outline, handbook, PMBoK Guide, prep book, prep course, sample questions, practice, Education

Like i wrote in my previous article "What is the current edition of the PMBoK Guide and when will the new edition be released?" the public review of the exposure draft has just begun and it is still a long road until the final version will be released towards the end of 2017 respective the beginning of 2018 when the printed version will become available.

Nevertheless it is interesting yet having a look on the upcoming changes the new version will bring us.

Of course this is high level and feels like a BETA version, but the major changes should be finalized already since public review has started, right?

Well, here we go:

Agile and other iterative practices

As some of us already heard there will be some new content to emphasisze the importance and relevance of agile and other iterative practices.

Different from previous editions, the PMBOK®Guide –Sixth Edition will contain numerous references to adaptive and iterative practices, including agile. This decision was made in response to the requests of PMIs stakeholders. This content will include:

The practices often used in an adaptive environment in the front of each Knowledge Area section (Sections 4–13).
An appendix toThe Standard for Project Management on agile and other iterative practices.

PMI Talent Triangle™

Will the new PMI Talent Triangle™ find its refelction in the upcoming PMBoK Guide Version? Of course!

The PMBOK®Guide –Sixth Edition will contain a new chapter on the role of the project manager which discusses the PMI Talent Triangle™ and the skill sets organizations demand that make project managers more competitive and relevant—technical project management, leadership, and strategic and business management.

Key Concepts

Many key concepts addressed in the first three chapters of the PMBOK® Guide are covered, in abbreviated form, in Section I of the Standard. Section II of the Standard contains a description of the project management processes, organized by Process Group, along with their key benefits, inputs and outputs.

Processes; Process Groups and Knowledge Areas

The Process Groups remain the same in the Sixth Edition, although two Knowledge Areas have new names:

Project Time Management is now Project Schedule Management, emphasizing the importance of scheduling in project management. This aligns with PMI’s Practice Standard for Scheduling.
And Project Human Resource Management is now Project Resource Management. We discuss both team resources and physical resources in the processes of this Knowledge Area.

There are three new processes in the Sixth Edition:

Manage Project Knowledge is part of the Executing Process Group and Project Integration Management knowledge area.
Implement Risk Responses is part of the Executing Process Group and Project Risk Management knowledge area.
Control Resources is part of the Monitoring and Controlling Process Group and Project Resource Management knowledge area.

Estimate Activity Resources is still part of the Planning Process Group, but it is associated with Project Resource Management processes instead of Project Schedule Management processes.

Since we do not know about deleting processes now, the overall number of processes seems to increase to 50!

In addition, some processes have different names. For example, to align with research showing that project management is more about facilitating and managing than controlling, we have shifted several processes from a Control function to a Monitor function. In other cases, we have aligned the process name with the intent of the process. The chart below identifies the overall name changes.

PMBOK 5th Edition	PMBOK 6th Edition
Perform Quality Assurance	Manage Quality
Plan Human Resource Management	Plan Resource Management
Control Communications	Monitor Communications
Control Risks	Monitor Risks
Plan Stakeholder Management	Plan Stakeholder Engagement
Control Stakeholder Engagement	Monitor Stakeholder Engagement

The function of the Close Procurement process has now been captured within Control Procurements and Close Project or Phase. Research shows that few project managers have the authority to formally and legally close a contract. Project managers are responsible to determine that work is complete, records indexed and archived, and responsibilities transferred appropriately. Thus, they have now included work associated with Close Procurements within the aforementioned processes.

Project Management Plan Components and Project Documents

Please note the following changes to the project management plan components and project documents:

The components of the project management plan that are inputs to a process, or that are updated as outputs from a process, are not listed individually in the inputs or outputs. Rather, the project management plan is the input and project management plan updates is the output.
Beneath the input/output table, a list of potential project management plan components is identified. However, the components of the project management plan that will be inputs or updated depends on the needs of the project.
Project documents are listed as an input and project documents updates is listed as an output, as appropriate. Beneath the input/output table there is a list of potential project documents that may be inputs, or may be updated as an output. The needs of the project will determine the actual project documents that should be inputs or updated as an output.

This is what we know about the upcoming changes yet. There may be additional changes; as a result from the actual exposure draft review for instance.

We will update this article accordingly.

first published @ projectmanagement.plus

Posted on: March 15, 2016 06:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (58)

Jetzt PMP werden mit "PMP myWay" - flexibel und kostengünstig - jetzt anmelden!

Categories: pmp, study material, learning, talent triangle, PDU, skills, competence, area of expertise.training, giving back, seminar, webinar, computer based training, web based training, modern learning, certification, PMBoK Guide, prep book, prep course, sample questions, mock exams, study plan, practice, Education

Actually this offer is unfortenatly only availble in german language, therefore this posting is also in german and target all german speaking professionals here on pm.com.

An english speaking version may be availbel autumn this year; if so i will let you know:

"PMP myWay" ist eine Kombination unterschiedlichster Lernelemente, mit dem Ziel, die Vorbereitung zum PMP-Examen stressfrei und alltagsbegleitend durchzuführen.
Für Ihren PMP-Erfolg haben wir verschiedene Lernelemente zu einem harmonischen Gesamtkonzert der PMP-Prüfungsvorbereitung arrangiert.
Sie werden betreut durch Ihren Lernprozess geführt und können sich mit vertretbarem Aufwand - auch während ihres Vollzeit-Jobs - auf die PMP-Prüfung vorbereiten!

Hier eine Überischt zu den Highlights/Komponenten (auch einzeln bzw. individull kombiniert buchbar!)

- Zwölf Lerneinheiten
- Zwei Präsenztage
- Elf Webinare
- ca. 90 Videos
- Lernplattform mit Quizzes, Übungen und Lese-Empfehlungen
- mehrere Hundert PMP-Übungsfragen
- Zwei Bücher
- ein (geschlossenes)Lernforum
- PMP- und PMI-Betreuung (wenn gewünscht!)

Unter folgendem Link finden Sie eine ausführliche Beschreibung der einzelnen Komponenten, ein Einführungsvideo, FAQs sowie eine Übersicht zu den buchbaren Paketen:
http://www.das-wuttke-team.com/pmp-myway-MK

Im Silbertarif können Sie einzelne Module flexibel gem. Ihren individuellen Bedürnissen zusammenstellen.

Bitte zögern Sie nicht etwaige Fragen auch gerne direkt hier im Forum zu stellen. Oder schreiben Sie mir gerne eine Nachricht.

Ergreifen Sie jetzt die Gelegenheit, Ihrer Projektmanagement-Karriere einen entscheidenden Schub zu geben; bsuchen Sie uns unter:
http://www.das-wuttke-team.com/pmp-myway-MK

Wir freuen uns auf Sie!

Markus Klein

Posted on: March 02, 2016 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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Visualize Goals

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