Buy SmartDraw 2008 now at the sale price and get a free upgrade to SmartDraw 2009!

SmartDraw is currently selling for approximately $100 less than the normal retail price. If you buy now you are also enrolled by Mindsystems to get a free upgrade to the next version, due very soon!

* SmartDraw 2008 and 2009 operates only on Windows® XP or higher.
* SmartDraw purchased from Mindsystems prior to this offer will also be upgraded free.

The personal ramblings of John England, the original Founder of Mindsystems...

As many of you will know, KnowledgeLink V5 Pro is currently under development to its new iteration V6. In this completely new version we will tackle some of the major issues in ‘Information Overload’.

One of these issues is the constant problem of juggling multiple problems/projects at the same time.  As a part of the preparation for briefing our developers, I was doing some research using Cirilab’s ‘Instigator’. This is the full implementation of the Knowledge Generation Engine which is the heart of Mindsystems ThemeReader, which allows you to identify the themes in a large document in seconds.

One of the extremely valuable features of the Instigator is the Discovery feature which allows you to search the web or a database using a whole document or a single idea as the source. The system does an extensive analysis to identify, not key words, but themes in material on the web (or database). This is particularly useful as it often unearths documents, which at first glance, seem to have little relevance to the search concept. Herein lies the real magic, because closer examination will often reveal hidden links within the selected material.

Getting back to the point, I found an interesting blog:

http://www.skelliewag.org/spinning-plates-how-to-succeed-with-multiple-projects-221.htm

This contains a very interesting article on ‘juggling multiple projects’ using the analogy of plate juggling.

Figure 1: Skelliwag Blog

While the blog is primarily concerned with the complexities of running a successful blog, it also contains some interesting thoughts concerning ‘multiple projects’.

Other references unearthed include:

• http://freelanceswitch.com/productivity/tips-for-handling-multiple-projects/
• http://www.pmcollege.com/managing-multiple-projects/
• http://www.4pmti.com/enterpriseprojectmanagement.aspx

While some of that information has a clear bearing on my search phrase of ‘Handling Multiple Projects’, it also unearthed some other less obvious issues such as the risk factors including:

• conflicts arising between projects,
• the danger of reporting to multiple bosses and handling feedback/criticism.

Whilst Mindsystems cannot deal with every single problem in day-to-day business, we intend to address some of the following issues:

• Maintaining an overview of multiple projects/events
• Instantly being able to visualise links between diverse projects
• Sorting, tagging and filtering information and data
• Being able to communicate results and data directly to other types of commonly used software such Microsoft Office/Project and the increasingly popular Open Office.

So it will be very interesting to see how we can address these issues in KnowledgeLink V6.

In the early days Mindsystems had an international reputation for team development, team selection, leadership/management and communications training.

Although the focus is now Visual Thinking and Planning, Mindsystems still retains that original core of expertise.

A very active part of that expertise is via our online Belbin Team Role Profiling Service, with experience in the use of the Belbin system spanning over 20 years.

Why do we use this system when there are so many other options? Extensive testing with all major systems on the market shows Belbin to be superior for the following reasons:

1. It is available on-line, which eliminates paper based responses. It also means both the people being profiled and their observers can be anywhere in the world.
2. The secure online completion ensures privacy as response come directly to Mindsystems and not via a third party. This is particularly important as the observers then have no reason not to be completely honest.
3. While basic profiles may be generated from a Self Perception, the real benefit accrues from the addition of the four to six observers’ reports. The crucial part of team development (and indeed, self development) is becoming aware of the impact that each team member has on the world in which they live. Profiles (from whatever the source) are seriously flawed, in our opinion, when they rely on just self perception.
4. Test/retest trials over long periods (years) prove the results are consistent
5. Variation in observer quality only produces minor reported profile changes. For example the ideal observer group may be a boss, a couple of co-workers and a couple of subordinates. However if all observers are family and social, the results, while not exactly the same, are usually acceptable.
6. Inconsistent reporting is flagged. For example:
1. An evasive Self Perception (be it deliberate or subconscious) is indicated via a special ‘dropped points’ score
2. A completely inconsistent observer report cannot be entered. Such an example might be a husband or wife trying to make their partner appear as a saint, when they fall short of that in reality! This protection against the ‘garbage in, garbage out’ is rarely found in profiling software: it is one of the Belbin strengths. 
7. The results are kept in a database making the construction of teams, replacing a member or recruiting much more rational activities. These activities can now be done with a measure of precision.
8. Jobs may be profiled just like people. This makes rapid matching of people to jobs completely feasible.
9. Compatibilities may be established between a boss and his or her team.

Indeed Mindsystems has taken the Belbin approach even further by developing a simple system which will allow a person to establish the ‘buying’ or ‘communication’ style in under a minute of meeting a person for the first time. It is possible to learn this technique in under a half a day ... something that most professionals take years to learn.

There is an endless cycle in both business and personal life and it starts with ‘The Itch’. This is an irritation that needs scratching ... it may come from:

• Poor profit results
• Falling sales
• An accident (Health and Safety)
• The launch of a new competitive product
• Etc., Etc

Dealing with an ‘Itch’...

There are many ways of dealing with an itch. For example: ignore it and hope it will go away, immediately take antibiotics ‘just in case’ or simply scratch it!

A more rational approach is to follow a process such as the one suggested in the flow chart. The process is simple:

Identify Issues > Identify Options > Evaluate Options > Choose One > Implement > Evaluate the Implementation ... and repeat the process.

It is important to note that any itch is never completely relieved (i.e. once you have a solution you go back and re-examine the itch) because circumstances are always changing.

While it is easy to describe the overall process actually doing it is not quite so straight forward and the situation is compounded by the fact that you would normally have half a dozen ‘Itches’ in different stages of solution at any one time.

Here at Mindsystems, we have given these actions a great deal of thought, simple though they seem. The result was that we decided to solve the ‘Itch’ problem in conjunction with all the discussions and suggestion we had from customers ranging for individuals up to the largest corporate clients. We decided we needed to design a platform that could:

• Deal with multiple ‘itches’ (projects) at the same time
• Collect and collate information in an easy, intuitive way
• Tag, sort and filter that information in such a way that ‘knowledge’ relevant to a situation could be rapidly assembled
• Display that knowledge in a whole range of common formats such as Microsoft Office, Open Source and other platforms
• Instantly display and keep track of time aspects of the projects using integrated calendars and charts
• Capture random thoughts for later inclusion in the projects regardless of whether the main desktop was running or not.
• Accurately roll back to earlier iterations of the projects (Easy to use Version Control)

Last but not least it should look good, be intuitive to use and not cost a fortune to own.