Tag Archives: problem solving

Have you ever had a brilliant idea that you were excited to share, only for fear to kick in and stop you in your tracks? What if others thought it was unrealistic, flawed or odd? At some point, we can all fall victim to self-doubt. Don’t fret, Mind Mapping a Greens and Reds Analysis will help you to eliminate any uncertainty surrounding your ideas.

The Greens and Reds Analysis is a simple but effective problem solving strategy that allows you to identify an idea’s pros and cons to encourage confident choices. By analysing your idea, you will build a strong case around it before you present it to others. In the example below, we will imagine that we manage a company’s I.T. department and we want to put forward the idea of team members working from home a few days a week. For the most effective analysis, we recommend weighing up the ‘Greens and Reds’ of your idea using the Mind Mapping technique, which we will get into below.

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When it comes to solving problems, your perspective only provides one view of a situation, limiting creativity. The Six Thinking Hats technique encourages you to switch between thinking styles to consider a problem from different angles and generate a variety of ideas and possible solutions.

You may be familiar with this technique already, but have you tried it with Mind Mapping? A Mind Map’s outward radiating branches and keywords prompt you to make associations between your thoughts and generate more ideas. With an overview of your ideas, you will easily spot the gaps in your analysis and can devote more attention to those areas.

Adopt a thinking style one-by-one, adding to your Mind Map as you go. During this exercise, you will have to review previous sections to complete another. A Mind Map’s structure doesn’t require you to think ‘in order’, so you can jump back and forth to build on different areas when needed.

Let’s get started…

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According to a recent survey, a shocking 94% of knowledge workers have at some point felt overwhelmed by information to the point of powerlessness. A 2012 study by the University of California suggests that current data levels are the equivalent of everyone consuming 12 hours of information each day. In practice, that means that three quarters of our time is spent receiving information – no wonder we are all getting overwhelmed! Too much information can significantly diminish our attention span and focus, not to mention hinder our ability to be creative. The impact on individuals varies from simple time-wasting to serious stress. For organisations, this can result in a damaging loss of productivity. But fear not. You can transform crushing quantities of information into something meaningful and give your brain the freedom to think using our Mind Mapping technique.

Here’s how…

1.Cut down clutter to find the facts

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One of the greatest limitations to creativity that we face is our tendency to only look at the world from our own, singular perspective. How often do you stop and consider an alternative viewpoint? Different people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, professions and interests will have different outlooks and opinions. Why not adopt another viewpoint to encourage your brain to produce original ideas? If you break the shackles of your narrow vision, ideas that were invisible from your own viewpoint will become clear.

Mind Mapping is ideal for this exercise as it triggers connections in the brain to spark further ideas. Using Mind Mapping software, such as iMindMap will allow you to get your ideas out of your brain and onto the page at lightning speed. Follow the three simple steps below to learn how to use Mind Mapping to borrow other perspectives when problem solving and generate creative ideas. In this article, we will use ‘low staff productivity’ as our example problem.

Step 1: Identify different points of reference

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