NovaMind News

In yet another significant update to the capabilities of NovaMind 5 for Mac preview release, NovaMind has enhanced the capabilities of the task reporting by adding a very powerful printing option, and exports to RTF and MS Word.

You can print your tasks directly from within the NovaMind program. When you choose to print, you will see options as follows:

NovaMind 5 Task Report Printing Options

The header and footer options are almost exactly the same as the main Mind Map printing options, so we won’t go into them in detail here. Notice one item in particular though, and that is the “Print Filter Criteria” option. If you turn this option on, the report will include the exact criteria that were used to generate the report, for example:

Task Report Filter Criteria

The information included in the reports is filtered according to your filtering criteria, and sorted according to any sorting you may have set up using the column headers.

The report only includes the columns you have chosen to include in your view, and the ordering and width is dependent on what you have set up on the task reports panel. Basically, we take the things you are looking at on the screen and reproduce that as best we can in the report. If you see columns with data that is wrapped onto two lines, and you want to prevent that, you would just cancel out of the printing, and widen the column and try again. Seeing as the task column is almost always going to be wider than any other columns, it is set to take up any available space once the other columns have taken up their space.

Task Report Exports

You can export your task data to several formats by using the popup menu in the bottom left of the task reports window:

Task Report Export Formats

CSV Export:

You can export the data from your report to CSV (comma separated values). Only the data that is shown in the results table will be exported, and only the columns that you have showing at the time. The export will also honor your sort order.

CSV files can be read by many programs, including in particular spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel.

Note that the specification for CSV files is very loose, and it doesn’t even have a standardized way of representing dates, so we just export the data as it appears on your screen. Most programs that import CSV files have options for interpreting things like percentages and dates, if they need to turn them into their raw data types to work with them.

RTF and Word Export

The RTF and Word export give you a table with the information, showing the columns you have selected, and with the data sorted according to your selected sort column (if you have sorted it). It also includes all the filtering criteria, just like what you get when you print it out.

There are many new features in the task reporting features of NovaMind 5, such as live update of data, exporting to CSV files, live inline editing of task information, and sorting of results. This is available in the Platinum edition of NovaMind 5.

You can access the task reports using the Task Reports button on the Task Settings inspector, or from the Window menu item.

The Task Reporting Panel

All the items on the report panel are updated live, so you can leave the panel showing while you edit your Mind Map, and the filtering, sorting, and data values will be updated live.

Here is an explanation of the filtering options:

• Complete: When checked, the report will be filtered based on the option beside it. Filtering by complete=Yes will show you any tasks which are at 100% complete. Filtering by complete=No will show you any tasks that have a percentage complete for the task (0% or more), but are less than 100% done.
• Overdue: When filtering by Overdue=Yes, you will see all the topics where there is an end date defined for the task, and the end date is after the date and time right now, and either there is no task % complete information for the topic, or the % complete is less than 100%.

  When filtering by Overdue=No, you will see all the topics where there is an end date defined for the tast, and the end date is less than or equal to the current date and time, and either there is no task % complete information for the topic, or the % complete is less than 100%.

• In Progress: When filtering by In Progress=Yes, you will see all the tasks that have a percentage complete of 0% or more, but less than 100%. Note the 0% – a task is not said to be in progress when you have no percentage complete, but where the percentage complete is set to zero, it is thought to be in progress because you have registered that you have started the task even though nothing concrete has been accomplished yet.

  When filtering by In Progress=No, you will see all the tasks that have no percentage complete, or the percentage complete is 100%. As per the above explanation, tasks with 0% complete will not be shown when filtering to show tasks that are not in progress.

• Min Priority: When filtering by minimum priority, all tasks with a priority greater than or equal to the specified priority will be shown in the report.
• Max Priority: When filtering by maximum priority, all tasks with a priority less than or equal to the specified priority will be shown in the report.
• Due to start in: When filtering by the tasks due to start in a certain number of days, only the tasks that are due to start after the date and time right now, and the specified number of days away will be shown in the report.
• Selected Resources: You can either choose to show the tasks no matter who is assigned to them, or you can select as many resources as you want to filter the results. When filtering by selected resources, only the tasks which have been assigned to the selected resources will be included in the report.

You can filter on as many of the different attributes as you like, all at the same time. Your filter settings are remembered in your preferences for all the left side filters, so you don’t need to set them all up again next time you start NovaMind, or work on a different Mind map.

Sorting results:

You can sort the results by clicking on any of the headers of the table to sort on that field. Note that we have implemented a special three state sorting where clicking on the table title will switch between sorting ascending on that column, sorting descending on that column, or not sorting at all. When you don’t sort at all, the results will be in the natural order of the Mind Map – i.e. the order that they would be numbered if they had outline numbers showing.

Results Sorted by Priority

Just a special note about the duration sorting: the sorting on the duration column works based on the actual length of time, so if you have a duration of 8 days and another duration of 1 week, the duration of 1 week would come before 8 days when sorting in ascending order.

Working with columns:

You can show and hide columns from your report by right clicking on the table to see the context menu like this:

Showing and Hiding Columns

Select one of the menu items to hide the column if it was showing, or to show it if it was hidden.

You can reorder the columns just by dragging them into the order you want them in.

You can resize the columns as desired. Note that the only column that will wrap its contents is the Topic / Task column.

Editing data:

With the exception of the actual name of the task, all the other columns are editable.

This means that you have full editing of the task information for all the displayed information.

For some data, like the priority and percentage complete, editing is in place:

Inline Editing of Task Data

For the more complex data, we need special popup editors to edit the information:

Popup Editors for editing Task Data

Editing Start Date in the Reports Panel

The same editing and value rules apply here as apply if you are editing the values in the inspector.

Note that if you have filtered your results and your edited data means that your topic no longer complies with the filter conditions, the edit will be applied, and the topic will disappear from the results. For example, if you were filtering on tasks that were complete, and you changed the percentage complete to be 95%, then it would no longer be displayed in your report.

Exporting your data:

You can export the data from your report to CSV (comma separated values). Only the data that is shown in the results table will be exported, and only the columns that you have showing at the time. The export will also honor your sort order.

CSV files can be read by many programs, including in particular spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel.

Note that the specification for CSV files is very loose, and it doesn’t even have a standardized way of representing dates, so we just export the data as it appears on your screen. Most programs that import CSV files have options for interpreting things like percentages and dates, if they need to turn them into their raw data types to work with them.

NovaMind 5 for Mac introduces many enhancements in handling of resources, including two way integration with Address Book.

Resources refer to people, equipment, facilities, or anything you may use for tasks, but in most cases, they refer to people. Resources are available in the Platinum edition of NovaMind.

To use resources on your Mind Map, you must create a pool of resources which you can assign to topics.

You can create resources in a number of different ways:

1. Click on the “+” button at the bottom of the inspector. A new empty row will be created, and you can edit the name and initials for the resource, or
2. Click on the address book button at the bottom of the inspector. A people picker will show, populated with all the people and groups you have in your address book, like this (only less blurry ):
   

   The People Picker

   You can use the search at the top to filter the records you see, and select as many of the people or groups as you would like to add, and then use the “Add Selected Groups” or “Add Selected People” to add the people you want. If you select multiple groups and some people are in more than one group, they will still only be added to your resources once, or

3. You can also drag resources directly from the Address Book application on to the resources inspector. In order to do this, you need to have the Address Book application running and visible and have NovaMind as the active application, and drag from the Address Book to the resources inspector without switching to the Address Book application (because the inspectors are set up to hide on application deactivation).
4. You can drag VCards in either from the file system or more commonly from mail messages. Note that there is no checking for uniqueness of VCard entries, or their linkage to any existing Address Book entries. Therefore, if you are likely to want to do a number of things with that resource, you would in most cases drag the VCard to Address Book, and then drag the person from the Address Book to NovaMind, to create a unique reference to the resource.

Once you have your resources there, if you have created them from Address Book addresses, you will see an address book icon beside them. If you click on the icon, the person’s record will be opened up in Address Book.

Resources, with Address Book icon

Note that when you add people from your address book, the initials are generated automatically, and there may be duplicates if you have forenames and surnames starting with the same letters. You can edit what is displayed in NovaMind without affecting your address book record, or breaking the link to the address book. Initials can be longer than two letters if you like, but the intention is that they are kept short.

You can sort your resources by name or initials, in ascending or descending order, by clicking on the table headers.

Resources are created on a document wide basis, so you can use them on multiple maps in the same document without having to create the resources again.

You can assign your resources in a number of different ways:

1. Select one or more topics, and use the check boxes to assign them to the selected topics, or
2. Select one or more resources in the inspector, and drag them to the topic you want to assign them to, or
3. Find the people (or groups) you want to assign in your Address Book application, and drag them on to the topic you want to assign them to. Note that if any of the people you drag on to the topic did not already exist in your resources, then they will both be added to your resources, and immediately assigned to the topic. If they already existed in your resources, they will just be assigned to the topic you dropped them on. If you have edited their name or initials in NovaMind, these settings will be preserved. This makes for a very powerful way to create resources and assign them directly from your address book.

When you have resources assigned to topics, you will see their initials displayed below the topic, along with any other task related information, prefixed by the letter R.

Task Resource Information on the Topics

If you do not have initials defined for a resource, the full resource name will be shown on the topic. We recommend using initials to reduce the space required.

When you mouse over the resources section of the information panel, you will see the full names of the resources as a tooltip like this:

Resources Tooltip

If you have multiple topics selected, and some of the resources are assigned to only some of the selected topics, then the checkbox will show in the indeterminate state:

Multiple Selection and Resources

In this case, Aileen and Galor are assigned to only one of the two selected topics. Checking or unchecking the boxes will affect all the selected topics.

Note that you are likely to often want to work with both task and resource settings at the same time, in which case, you would  select one of them and then Command+Click the other one in the inspector so you can see them both at once:

Selecting Multiple Inspector Panels

You can delete resources by selecting them in the resources inspector, and clicking the “-” button at the bottom of the inspector.

If you are removing resources which are assigned to any topics, you will be prompted for confirmation like this:

Deleting a Resource that is Assigned

So you can see exactly which topics that resource is assigned to. If you confirm deletion, they will be both unassigned and completely removed from your resource list.

Task information has just been added to the preview of NovaMind 5 for Mac. This article shows you what it does and teaches you how to use it.

You can put detailed information about tasks on the topics using the Task Settings of the Data inspector. This is available in the Platinum edition of NovaMind.

Task Information Inspector

The settings on the Task Settings panel affect what is shown on the Mind Map – for instance, the settings above would show like this:

Task Information Display

Priority:

• To set the priority, either adjust the slider, or enter the priority number in the text field, or in the text field you can use the up and down arrows. You can have priorities between 1 and 9.
• To make it easier to notice the differences, the different priorities are shown in different colors.
• To remove the priority indicator, move the slider all the way to the left, or enter 0 (or nothing) in the text field.

% Complete:

• The percentage complete is shown as a pie chart on the topic, with the green portion being the amount already complete, and the red portion being the amount still not complete. Percentage complete can be between 0 and 100.
• To set the percentage complete, you can either use the slider or enter a value in the text field. In the text field, you can also use the up and down arrow keys to increase or decrease the value.
• When you move your mouse over the pie chart on the Mind Map, you will see a tooltip showing you the exact percentage complete, so you can easily see the information even if you don’t have the topic selected.
• 

  Start Date Entry

• To remove the % complete indicator, either move the slider all the way to the left, or type in the number -1 in the text field, or enter a blank value in the text field (0% complete shows at an all red pie chart).

Duration:

• There are two parts to the duration: the amount and the unit. You can set the amount by either typing the amount or using the up or down arrows in the text field. Set the units using the popup button.
• At the right end of the row is a calculator. This is enabled if you have a start and end date defined, and when you click it, it will use the difference between the start and end date as the duration of the task. The duration may not be the difference between the start and end dates in all cases, for instance, where you have a task that has a start date and finish date a fortnight apart, but only 6 days of that time are actually spent on the work, you may want to record the work duration as 6 days instead of 14. When the duration is calculated, the system tries to work out the most appropriate units for the amount of time. If you want to use different units, you will have to change it manually.
• The duration is displayed as part of the information panel just below the left of the topic, after the letter D. If you are using a non-English language, and D does not mean “Duration” to you, you can see the full localized duration wording in the tooltip at that point.

Start and End date:

• The checkboxes beside the start and end date can be checked to indicate whether you want to record the start and/or end date for the topic. The start date is shown on your topic beside the letter S and the end beside the letter E.
• When you check the checkbox, today’s date will be entered into the field, with the time at 12:00 AM. The time 12:00am is used to denote there being no specific time associated with the setting, and the display on the topic will not include minutes or seconds. If you have any other time on the topic, then the time will be shown on the topic like this:

• 

  Date Selector Popup

• The order of the date components is automatically localized according to your system preferences. The date format to show the date on your topic is using the Short format as defined in your system preferences. If you mouse over a date displayed on a topic, you will see a tooltip with the full date in the Full date format style, like this:

• 

Multiple values:

It is very important when you are dealing with project data that you know about the applicability and accuracy of the information you are seeing on the user interface. If you have multiple topics selected, it is clearly impossible for us to show a slider or text field or date picker with two values at the same time, so we have always shown value for the last selected topic, but now we make it absolutely clear on the user interface that you have multiple values selected.

This is done by putting a special prompt at the top of the inspector, and a colored background behind the specific items where there are multiple values, like this:

Task Inspector with Multiple Selection

So at the top, you see the key to tell you that that shape means that there are multiple values in the selected topics. Both the selected topics have the same priority and start date, but different % complete, duration, and end dates.

The controls are still active for the items where there are multiple selections, and when you change a value for one of the settings, it will set that value for all the selected topics.

Notice also that there is a dependency for editing the end date on there being an end date specified for both the selected topics, so for the dates, if you have a date specified for all the topics, but they are different dates, then you would see the checkbox checked, and the date would be editable.

Integrating Mind Mapping Techniques with Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server, Creating Powerful New Project Management Tool

Bonn, Brisbane, Phoenix – September 16, 2009 – A powerful new combination of project planning software packages, enabling business managers to develop comprehensive project plans in even faster and more effective ways, was announced today by Wodey Informationssysteme and NovaMind Software. ProjectLINKER for NovaMind 5, developed by Wodey Informationssysteme, Bonn, Germany, and NovaMind Software, Australia, elegantly couples the latest business mapping software, “NovaMind 5”, with the latest “Microsoft Office Project”, letting enterprise teams plan, map, track and clearly understand their activities as never before.

For more information and screenshots of the new plugin in action, please visit http://www.novamind.com/projectlinker

Through ProjectLINKER for NovaMind 5, project plans and data are bi-directionally synchronized between NovaMind and Microsoft Office Project as well as Microsoft Project Server. This allows organizations to gain unprecedented visibility into their resources, as all projects, complex and small, can be tracked in Microsoft Office Project Server. The solution now makes it faster and easier to report project status in a visual intuitive format to executives and client stakeholders. Without further training, business managers will have access to resource availability during the initial planning phases resulting better business decisions, more accurate plans and more realistic expectations.

ProjectLINKER for NovaMind 5 offers business leaders clarity and transparency in their project portfolios. Additionally, teams can record project history, status, and multi-project overviews – all with graphical indicators to enhance visual reporting. The use of ProjectLINKER for NovaMind 5 for project planning can accelerate the deployment of Microsoft Project Server 2007. Due to its powerful, yet easy planning capabilities, even the smallest projects can be planned and tracked in Microsoft Office Project Server.

ProjectLINKER for NovaMind 5 will be presented for the first time in the Microsoft Office Project Conference, September 14 – 17 2009 in Phoenix, AZ. Wodey Informationssysteme will demonstrate the tool during the conference and will have a booth in the exhibition hall as well. Also, both companies, Wodey Informationssysteme and NovaMind will announce their partnership on the Project Conference. In Germany, the product will be presented on the Microsoft exhibition stand on the “discuss & discover” – platform from October 20 – 22, 2009 in Munich, as Wodey Informationssysteme is going to be one of the 20 Microsoft partners in Germany.

The German and English product versions of ProjectLINKER for NovaMind will be available soon. Please keep yourself updated through http://www.novamind.com/projectlinker

About Wodey Informationssysteme

Wodey Informationssysteme is being valued as a leading specialist in the field of enterprise-wide implementation of visual and holistic project management programmes. The service portfolio ranges from a first analysis, over the to-be-concept and a pilot model to the realisation of the project. After the implementation process customer-specific requests will be fulfilled and all parties involved will be trained according to their different roles and responsibilities. Wodey Informationssysteme offers training and coaching programmes as well as support for professional project management.

The company is a Microsoft Premier Project Partner, and has a lot of experience with Mind Mapping, having previously developed a version of ProjectLinker for Mind Manager, but have now stopped developing for Mind Manager, in favor of working with NovaMind. Reiner Wodey, Managing Director, holds a membership at the Microsoft Partner Advisory Council in Redmond, USA. Wodey Informationssysteme is headquartered in Bonn, Germany and is being represented in 13 additional countries. For more information, visit www.wodey.de

About NovaMind

NovaMind is used by businesses, in education, and for personal effectiveness, for tasks such as note taking, managing to-do lists, brainstorming, research, problem solving, decision making, presentation preparation and delivery, project planning, knowledge management, writing, and many other uses. NovaMind has been the top Mind Mapping program available on Mac computers for the last 7 years, and has been available for Windows for over 3 years. It is rapidly gaining recognition for its many unique and innovative features and ease of use. NovaMind 5 is set to take Mind Mapping beyond where any Mind Mapping software has been before, making Mind Mapping even more powerful, intuitive and fun.

For more information about NovaMind, please visit www.novamind.com or e-mail Gideon King at Gideon/at/novamind.com.

Mind Maps are a great tool for planning and managing projects.

In this video I will show you how to plan your projects and how to use those project plans for scope management,  communicating project goals, and getting the buy-in of all stakeholders.

The earlier video on to do lists introduced you to the basic concepts of organizing your requirements using mind mapping. Now we will extend that to look at project planning specifics.

But first, let’s ask the question, “What’s wrong with the age-old standard project management packages like MS Project and Merlin?”

Well, they certainly do give you good tools to manage your projects, but they really have a strong tendency to get people focusing on the minute task levels of projects far too early in the inception phases of a project.

This means that you can easily lose sight of the main objectives of the project, or get so stuck in the details that you forget some important tasks or objectives.

But the planning for a successful project begins before that. There is a whole inception phase of the project where the relevant information is collected together and organized so that you have a clear understanding of the scope, time, cost, quality, resources, communications, risks and of course stakeholder requirements for the project.

Often this information is gathered as large specification documents which are hard to navigate around and understand the requirements, but all of these areas can benefit from the use of Mind Mapping, and you can create Mind Maps to represent each knowledge area, and have branches for the details and hyperlinks to other documents and resources where required.

As you start a project, you need to define what the major objectives are, and each one of these objectives will become a first level branch of the Mind Map, then for projects of any reasonable size these objectives get further broken down into sub-objectives that contribute to the achievement of the major objectives, or the major areas of work contributing to the overall objectives. So these become the second level branches like this. Finally it is broken down into actual tasks that must be performed, which are the leaf branches on your Mind Map.

Obviously this is flexible and you only use as many levels as necessary for your project, and for a large project, it may require more levels.

When you get down to the task level, you may want to assign resources to the tasks. This is something you can do in the Platinum edition of NovaMind. The video shows you how to create and assign resources to the branches. Of course the resources usually refer to people, but can also refer to other resources which have a limited availability, like vehicles and meeting rooms.

The video also shows you how to assign task information to the branches, including priorities, percentage complete, start and finish date and duration.

You can see how easy it is to structure your project into objectives and then go right down to the task and resource level using Mind Maps. This means that you can use brainstorming techniques to come up with the right ideas and objectives. The techniques used for brainstorming are covered in a different video.

As you go through the exercise, you will fully explore the options for the project in much more breadth and depth than what you could cover in a requirements document. Then you can do the assessment of the ideas and objectives, and make sure that the ones you want are retained, and then look at the budget and time constraints etc, and go through a scoping exercise.

Mind Maps are a great way to manage project scope because you can remove a branch or sub-branch without impacting the other branches.

This makes it easy to make sure that there is nothing forgotten in the early planning and scoping part of the project, as well as being a great tool for presenting the project to all the stakeholders.

If you are trying to get funding for a project, it makes it much easier when the project plan is drawn out as a Mind Map. Everyone can see what the objectives are for the project, how they are going to be achieved, the tasks that are required to achieve the outcomes, as well as the resources that are required. When the project sponsors see in the Mind Map all the things that need to be done to achieve their objectives, they will understand the basis for the project costs, and can make much better informed decisions on scoping and overall outcomes. This means that it is much more likely that they will accept the costings you have provided because they can see where their money is going – everyone can see clearly what the objectives are, how they are going to be achieved, and what resources are going to be required. They may also decide to take some of the main objective branches and move them to a new phase in the project so that it can be done properly, rather than trying to fit it in to an unreasonable timeframe.

But what if you need to bring someone up to speed on a project that is already underway?

Mind Maps are very useful in briefing new team members on the project. When a new team member is assigned to the project, the Mind Maps will give them a picture of the overall project goals, updating them very quickly. The Mind Maps give a graphical overview of the tasks, how they relate to each other and their importance and impact in the greater scheme of things.

The new team member can then be introduced to their individual role in the project and will be able to quickly see what their responsibilities are and how these responsibilities relate to the overall project, giving them a better understanding of what and how they will contribute to the team and the project. Often this will lead to them volunteering their skills for tasks you may not have assigned them to, because they understand that they can make a strong contribution to the project in that area.

You very quickly have their “buy-in” on the project, whether they are coming in at the start of the project or part way through. They can see exactly where they fit in, why they are needed and how they can contribute.

Now of course during the running of your project, you would use a dedicated project management package like MS Project or Merlin to handle the detailed running of the project, and you can transfer your project information to Merlin, or to any project management package that reads the MS Project XML file format (which is just about all the project management software currently available).

So as you can see, NovaMind is a great tool particularly for the inception phases of projects.

Watch the video now to hear about using Mind Maps for brainstorming requirements; scoping; time, cost and quality management, assigning resources, communicating project requirements, and managing risks. When you use Mind Mapping in this way, you will be able to manage the scope of projects better, make sure that no requirements are left out, have better communication with the stakeholders and sponsors, and have better buy in from your staff working on the project.

All these things add up to better managed and more successful projects.

 

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PowerPoint Export

NovaMind for Mac received a significant update today with the ability to export Mind Maps directly from NovaMind to PowerPoint.

This capability opens up new sharing opportunities where there is a need to brainstorm ideas using Mind Mapping techniques, and yet to share the information using more “traditional” presentation software.

Although NovaMind for Mac used to have similar functionality, it did not work with the latest version of PowerPoint, and so we took the opportunity to completely rewrite the PowerPoint export in such a way that it no longer requires PowerPoint to be installed on your computer for the export to work.

The files produced are the new PPTX files used by PowerPoint 2007 for Windows and PowerPoint 2008 for Mac.

Here is a video of the export procedure and results:

Standard text styles are used wherever possible to make sure that when you apply a theme to your presentation in PowerPoint, the styles are applied consistently throughout the presentation.

Images on the branches are transferred to the presentation, and the branch notes become speaker notes.

This makes the transition from your NovaMind Mind Map to your PowerPoint presentation almost instantaneous.

PowerPoint export is available immediately as a free update to NovaMind 4 Platinum and NovaMind 4 Pro, and requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to function.

MS Project Export and Import

For some time, the Mac edition of NovaMind Platinum has had the ability to add project related information like start and finish dates, percentage complete, priorities, and assign resources to the branches on the Mind Maps, and then import the project information into Merlin project manager for Mac.

While this is a really good solution, we realize that many of you are using other project management software. The Microsoft Project file format has become the de facto standard for project management applications, so no matter which project management software you use, it is almost certain that you will be able to use the MS Project format.

This means that you can carry out the project inception phases in NovaMind, brainstorming your ideas and working out the project’s scope and objectives, then export into Microsoft Project format for detailed project management.

During the project, if you need to bring someone new on to the project or brainstorm solutions to particular problems in the project, you can either import the whole project file into NovaMind, or export a portion of the project plan from your project management package and open it in NovaMind, and work with it in NovaMind. Using the Mind Map format makes it easy to see the interrelationships between objectives and requirements and tasks within the scope of the project, which makes it a powerful tool for both understanding where all the different pieces of the project fit together, and also for designing solutions to project related issues.

The Microsoft Project import and export functionality is available immediately as a free update for NovaMind 4 Platinum for Mac users, and requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to function.

A lot of project managers are turning to Mind Mapping for their project planning needs.

There is detailed information on project planning using mind maps available on the NovaMind web site. The project planning page has just been updated with new mind maps to help explain the planning process.

Although standard project management packages such as MS Project and Merlin give you good tools to manage your projects, but they really have a strong tendency to get people focusing on the minute task levels of projects far too early in the inception phases of a project.

Others find it difficult to follow things like Gantt charts and the spreadsheet-like rows and columns of task data.

Often this leads to losing sight of the main objectives of the project, or getting so stuck in the details that you forget some important tasks or objectives. Or the attention of key people can wander off topic.

Using brainstorming techniques, you can put together a Mind Map of the project that shows everyone where they fit in, why each part of the project is important, and how it relates to the overall goals and objectives.

This makes it easy to make sure that there is nothing forgotten in the early planning and scoping exercises, as well as being a great tool for presenting to stakeholders in the project. If you are trying to get funding for a project, it makes it much easier when the project plan is drawn out as a Mind Map. Everyone can see what the objectives are for the project, how they are going to be achieved, the tasks that are required to achieve the tasks, as well as the resources that are required.

There are a number of articles on the NovaMind web site about project planning as well as other forms of planning using mind mapping techniques.

These techniques have saved millions of dollars in project costs, as well as helped win contracts, and ease the workload of project managers around the world.

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Merlin 2.6 with web publishing capabilities.

With the Web Sharing module, you can publish your project file over the web either as a live HTML document so you can collaborate with other users over the web or as a static HTML page that you can share with the team.

This feature opens the door for all users who wish to use Merlin but can’t because they are tied to an operating system other than Mac OS X. By publishing your Merlin project file using Merlin application and its Web Module add on, you can allow any user to access the project and collaborate with you on it only using their web browser.

Here is a project that has been shared using Web Sharing – as you can see, it has just about all the features of Merlin available to the whole team on the web.

The update from earlier versions of Merlin 2 is free, but a separate license is required for the web sharing capabilities. The web sharing licenses can be purchased from the NovaMind online store.

Merlin 2.6 also has a wide range of bug fixes, and enhancements to things like Microsoft Project import, and application of styles.

NovaMind is pleased to announce the immediate availability of the latest Mind Map Connection newsletter, which contains information about the latest developments in NovaMind, including:

Mind Manager import functions

MS Project import and export functions

Crossgrade discounts

New Mind Mapping tutorial videos and web pages about how to use Mind Mapping for various types of planning

The “back to school” site license sale starting on 3rd July with 50%+ off a limited number of site licenses. Although this was prompted by the tight funding within schools, it is also open to anyone who is feeling the pinch of tough economic times.

Here is the link to read the full newsletter:

http://www.novamind.com/mind-map-connection/mmc-2008-06-28.php

Enjoy!

Gideon

Microsoft Project Import and Export

For some time, the Windows edition of NovaMind Platinum has had the ability to add project related information like start and finish dates, percentage complete, priorities, and assign resources to the branches on the Mind Maps.

Unlike the Mac version of NovaMind which can be imported directly into Merlin, the Windows edition did not have any way of getting the information over into a project management package.

Now that has all changed with the introduction of both import and export of Microsoft Project XML files. This means that you can carry out the project inception phases in NovaMind, brainstorming your ideas and working out the project’s scope and objectives, then export into Microsoft Project format for detailed project management.

The Microsoft Project file format has become the de facto standard for project management applications, so no matter which project management software you use, it is almost certain that you will be able to use the MS Project format.

During the project, if you need to bring someone new on to the project or brainstorm solutions to particular problems in the project, you can either import the whole project file into NovaMind, or export a portion of the project plan from your project management package and open it in NovaMind, and work with it in NovaMind. Using the Mind Map format makes it easy to see the interrelationships between objectives and requirements and tasks within the scope of the project, which makes it a powerful tool for both understanding where all the different pieces of the project fit together, and also for designing solutions to project related issues.

The Microsoft Project import and export functionality is available immediately as a free update for NovaMind Platinum for Windows users, and will be integrated into the NovaMind Platinum Mac product shortly.

Mind Manager Import

The Pro and Platinum editions of NovaMind for Windows also now have the capability of importing Mind Manager files. We have a lot of users who have a number of old Mind Maps that they want to convert to NovaMind format and work with in NovaMind, and people who receive Mind Manager files from colleagues, so we have built this capability into the Windows version of NovaMind Pro and Platinum.

Mind Manager import and export has been in the Mac version of NovaMind for several years, but the techniques we are using in the Windows product gives a better result, so we are going to be porting the new Windows import capability over to the Mac, and it will be available shortly.

To get the latest version, just do a check for updates in NovaMind and download the latest version.

You can use Mind Mapping to make your opportunities and priorities clear. It makes growing your business easy and systematic.

Many businesses struggle because the owners and managers don’t have the right strategies to grow their businesses in the marketplace, or even if they do know the strategies, they are either not sure how to implement them, or are overwhelmed by the number of different things to think about all at once.

In this article you will learn how you can grow your business using Mind Mapping.

Included in this article is:

• a Mind Mapping case study,
• Mind Mapping tips,
• some ideas to help you with your project planning,
• the results of a Mind Mapping survey,
• techniques to help with getting things done,
• and videos on the 5 business growth factors.

So hop on over to find out how you can grow your business using Mind Mapping.

Gideon