Genuine Curiosity

Need a GPS for your mind map?

A few months ago, I started working with Adam Sicinski’s amazing mind map diagram called the “MasterMind Matrix.”  I’d like to tell you a little about it, since I think it is a very interesting and useful self-coaching tool.

At first glance, I felt that Adam’s work was impressive – this is one of the largest and most comprehensive mindmaps I have ever seen.  You see, Adam is a Life Coach, but is also a guru/student of self development.  He set out to find a way to allow himself and others to answer questions like:

• How do my emotions interact with my beliefs, values and other building blocks of my personality?
• What influence do other people have over the development of my personality?
• How does my Brain interpret what I do? And how does it consequently influence my future decisions & actions?
• How do each one of my choices and decisions influence all other aspects of my personality and life?
• How do I know if I am on track moving towards fulfillment, or off-track moving towards disappointment?

The result is a terrific tool that helps you drill down on various challenges and strengths so you can improve your performance and break through bottlenecks by better understanding how your strengths, blind spots, and emotional tendencies interact.  It’s tough to describe without experiencing it yourself, but I found the process to be very intriguing and invigorating.

You can get a PDF version of the file (that’s what I’m using), or you can order a wall poster.  I am thinking about going for the wall poster, since I can’t interact with the PDF as easily on the screen (though I’m glad I have the PDF for use on the road).

If you want a taste of what this tool is like, you can download the accompanying MasterMind Matrix mind map for free.  This is kind of like an index that can guide you to the right places on the bigger map.

I recommend you read Adam’s “Journey through the MasterMind Matrix” for his perpective on this tool.

You can find out even more about the matrix at the IQMatrix site, or get your own copy at the IQMatrix Shop.

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del.icio.us Tags: personal improvement,self development,mindmap,Adam Sickinski,Dwayne Melancon,mindhacks

David Allen: Making It All Work

As you may know from my past writing here, I have been a follower of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD)  methodology for many years.  It’s been a cycle of awesome productivity, interspersed with frustration and thrash.  Why?  I tend to get bored with repetition and systems, even when I see their value and GTD has been no different.  Well, to be fair, it’s been a bit different because I’ve noticed that I am able to stick with GTD much longer than many other processes.  But it’s still a bit of a struggle.

The promise of a book

When I heard about David Allen’s new book, “Making It All Work,” I preordered my copy pretty early.  I was intrigued by its premise (promise?):

“Making It All Work” addresses: How to figure out where you are in life and what you need; How to be your own consultant and the CEO of your life; Moving from hope to trust in decision-making; When not to set goals; Harnessing intuition,spontaneity, and serendipity; And why life is like business and business is like life.

So, now I’ve read the book – did it deliver?

First, this book is not a substitute for the original.  It’s more like a sequel, building on the solid foundation of GTD and extending it with some of the lessons and new perspectives David has learned since his methodology has become a phenomenon.

If you have read the first book, you’ll find some useful thought in this book from David himself, some of which may help clear any stumbling blocks you’ve encountered in your adoption of GTD.

Some of the things I picked up in this book are simply shifts in perspective – like thinking of your lists and notes as “bookmarks” to help you go back to where you were later.  I don’t do anything differently, but I find I’m more likely to “bookmark” with my lists now, and I often treat the bookmarks more like pointers than dissertations (and pointers are quicker, also making it more likely I will do this).

I was pleased to find that there are some new topics and methods in this book.  For example, the section dealing with Capturing has been expanded to include quite a bit of detail on brainstorming, processing, and clarification of what you’ve captured.  This section includes quite a collection of best practices.

A clearer map

David also includes quite a few mind maps that helped me, due to my visual thinking tendencies. There are maps showing how to make more effective lists, become more output-focused in your thinking, better cope with projects and reference materials, and quite a few other areas that often felt mysterious to me during my GTD journey.

There is also some solid material about weekly reviews (which I knew about but certainly haven’t perfected).

All of this converges in the book with the goal of helping you become better at managing your life by becoming better at GTD.  Of course, a book can’t provision good habits and consistent practice.  That’s the tough part.  And that’s where my trouble lives, I realize.

If you’re committed to GTD, you’ll get a lot out of “Making It All Work.”  If you’re new to GTD start with the first GTD book, then pick this one up after you have the basics down.

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Related items:

• My GTD Odyssey - part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
• Productivity, like crime, requires motive and opportunity
• Speed dating in Outlook

Out of sight - out of your mind?

I have been working on a wide variety of projects lately, and keeping track of the details and status of them all has been a bit nerve-wracking. Putting them on project lists helped a lot with what to do, but I still found myself searching for status information such as:

• What have I done on this already?
• Who am I waiting to hear back from?
• What's left to do?
• What's in process but not complete?
• etc.

Managing this with context lists in the "GTD way" wasn't quite cutting it for me (or maybe I'm doing it wrong). I found myself going to multiple lists very frequently to try to get a holistic picture of where each of my projects stood. To solve this, I turned to my old pal Mind Manager to help me create a "status map."

My "real" status map has too much work-related information that I can't share publicly, so I have mocked up an example of one here. For each project, I map out things such as:

• Desired outcomes
• Research
• Next actions
• Other
• Completed actions
• Waiting for
• Calls to make
• To be done

You can (obviously) customize this in any way you'd like. I find that I can keep multiple projects current on my status map (I currently have 4 major "domains" of activity on my map - 3 for work, 1 for home). When I have status meetings, I can print a particular "branch" of the map if the status meeting is about a particular project, or I can print the whole map (I use 11" x 17" paper for better readability). I print the whole map (with the "Home" branch collapsed) when I go into one-on-one meetings with my boss, so I can take him through what I'm working on and where things stand.

As we go through the project review, I write on the printed copy of the map and re-integrate my notes back into my Mind Map later.

This is working pretty well for me, and makes it a bit easier to keep the plates spinning without letting any of them drop.

Here is another mocked-up section of a project to give you an idea the kinds of things that might be in some of the buckets (you can click to zoom in).

If you want to see a blurry, unreadable, zoomed out picture of my real map you can see it here, just for grins.

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Creating job descriptions with MindManager

I recently wanted to revamp a position description, and decided to pull out my trusty ol’ MindManager Pro to help get the job done.

First, I created a basic template to help organize various aspects of a position.  I then used MindManager to populate details and fill out the template with things that articulated what I’m looking for in a candidate for that position.  I find that using MindManager to brainstorm makes it easy to quickly create a crisp view of the things I want and need.

I also took this opportunity to roll in the view of “What do you hire on?” and “What would you fire on?” as discussed in my post on that topic a couple of months ago.

When I’m done with fleshing out the mind map, I create a more traditional job description based on what I’ve come up with.  Of course, I don’t just type in everything verbatim from the mindmap.
For example, the “Things I’d Fire On” doesn’t get put directly into the job description.  However, I do ensure that I have requirements and experience elements that minimize my chances of hiring someone I’d fire. 

The “…Fire On” list also provides great fodder for building a strong interview guide so you can ask questions to drill on specific areas of concern.  This will allow you to discover whether candidates may be incompatible or unacceptably deficient in comparison with your requirements for the position.

For example, if I determined that I’d fire someone if they couldn’t predictably manage and complete complex projects on time, I’d do things like:

• Add requirements and key success factors describing the need to manage complex projects and meet committed delivery and completion dates;
• Add experience requirements targeting candidates with a proven track record on-time projects;
• Add interview questions probing for examples of when they’ve done what I’m looking for – and examples of when they haven’t, so I can find out what they’ve learned from that;
• Add questions for use during reference checks to drill for the ability to satisfy my requirements.

If this sounds useful to you, I’ve provided a copy of the basic template for your use here, and would love to hear about any useful iterations, improvements, or similar tools you use.

Note:  After you’ve hired someone and it’s time to review their performance, you can also use MindManager to collect and organize your thoughts and feedback from their co-workers.  Find out more here.

[Updated] A map for easier performance reviews

[Updated July 2007 to correct broken links]

I'm in the midst of writing annual reviews. For the managers that report to me, I typically ask for input from people in their teams, people they interact with, and customers they work with. This is a great process, as you end up with a lot of different perspectives, stories, suggestions, kudos, etc.

One of my challenges in the past has been summarizing that in a concise, meaningful way. This year it was so much easier - it's the first year I used MindManager to organize the input.

I created a basic template to categorize and summarize the input and stories. Using this template, it was very easy to collect the information, and organize the information into summary "themes." You can download the template here: PersonnelReviewTemplate.mmap (16 KB).

I organized each person's input into three top level categories: input from their own department, input from other departments (I included customers in this category), and my own perspectives as a sort of summary.

Under each of these major categories, I created a branch for what they do well, and a branch for areas for improvement. I included stories and meaningful quotes from the feedback I received.

Then, as I wrote the review I had a handy reference catalog on each person. This made it easy to find relevant examples - for example, if I wanted to talk about the person's performance with regard to follow-through and effective communications, I could quickly scan the map and pull out a few nuggets along with an example or a quote for emphasis.

This year, I found that this method made it much easier to write these reviews. I also have a one-page summary of the input that I can keep on hand to refresh my memory as I develop coaching plans for the coming year. I think this approach will be part of my toolkit from now on.