How I Use a Mind Map to Brainstorm My Best Stories

by Edwin Fig

With all the remote work in recent times, I miss the whiteboards sometimes.

But honestly, I've always hoped for better virtual whiteboards vs the real thing. I have terrible handwriting. I'm a tech native. Even in my school years, in the late 90s, I was the kid in class taking notes on a Palm Pilot PDA.

In 1998, laptops in classrooms were not allowed. Palm Pilots were a loophole 🙂

The most whiteboarding I usually do, is in a job interview. Otherwise, I'm just another guy in the room, working collaboratively in whatever way I'm needed. I'll whiteboard if I need to. But I prefer to prepare my work ahead of time. I'll create wireframes, mock schemas, and create articles to share with everyone in the meeting. The articles need to contain real, compelling user stories.

User stories need depth. You're trying to provide context to a problem. To get a team of people to rally around a solution. For stories to have depth, you need to prepare a drill-down.

How do I prepare stories?

Miro was recommended to me by a UX buddy a few months ago. Almost everyone I work with now uses it.

I instantly recognized it as Electronjs based app, it's speed, it's web components. Expertly designed. Beautiful and easy to use.

Here's my life story, in Mindmap Form

Ed's Life Story as a Mind Map

This might be my favorite solo brainstorming method so far.

I wonder if there's a way to do this collaboratively 🤔