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Planning Picnic

Brainstorming. Relationships. Styles of the relationships.

Besides drawing mind maps you can use ConceptDraw MINDMAP for brainstorming. Brainstorming was originally used to find a quick potential range of solutions to a difficult problem. As a rule, several people take part in brainstorming, and the session has a time limit. Each participant must generate as many ideas as possible, inspired by what others in the group say. One should not concentrate on the logic, instead, the focus should be on the flow of ideas. Brainstorming mode in ConceptDraw MINDMAP allows you to organize these ideas in a hierarchical structure.

Now we are going to use the brainstorming technique to plan a picnic.

You need to create a new document for brainstorming using the New / Brainstorming... command from the File menu. For holding the Brainstorming session in the current document, click the Brainstorming button on the Map Management toolbar or choose the Brainstorming... item from the Tools menu.

The Brainstorming window will open. The main theme that the brainstorming is going to focus on is the main topic of the document.

Now you need to enter the theme of our Brainstorming: Picnic.

The main idea will be automatically renamed and will take the name of the Brainstorming theme.

Set the time of the discussion in the Hours, Minutes, Seconds fields and click the Timer On/Off button to start the timer. This will allow you to keep track of the time that the brainstorming sessions is conducted.

When the brainstorming time is up, the corresponding message will be displayed accompanied by an audible signal:

During the Brainstorming session we will add new ideas on the map. To add an idea, enter it into a text field and press the button Add or Enter key. The topic will be added on the map as floating topic.

Now the group needs to start discussing what is needed for a picnic. First of all, determine how many people are taking part and add the Participants Number topic.

Then think how your group is going to get to the picnic area: the Getting there topic. Develop this topic, adding a couple ideas on how to get to picnic location. For instance, will the participants can go by car or will you rent a bus. Next think about entertainment at the picnic. Now we can add this information on the map with all our ideas on a theme Picnic.

If in the future you need to change the text of any topic, switch to the editing mode by double-clicking on the topic.

After all of the ideas are added, you can finish the Brainstorming session. To do this, press the Finish Brainstorming button.

After ending the session the map view will open automatically.

You can work with the topics the same way as with floating topics in the map and outline views. Let us make the map of all of the added floating topics simply by selecting the topics with mouse and moving them on to each other.

If you need, you can add more floating topics in the map mode using the Floating topic button or switch to the Brainstorming mode again.

Now you can highlight the main idea by using font properties, set the lines style and add the appropriate symbols.

Now we can add the following text notes to the map:

• "Jack takes his one, Ann and Bob can take records" to the Tape recorder topic;
• "2 kg of bananas, 5 kg of apples, 2 kg of apricots" to the Fruit topic.

A mind map represents ideas, facts and objects as a hierarchy - ideas are organized from the general to the particular. However, real life is not always so logical, and two concepts can be related even if one does not follow the other. For instance, there are food and medicines. They are not related on the mind map, though they may be related in the real life. You can show this relationship graphically in ConceptDraw MINDMAP.

ConceptDraw MINDMAP contains the Insert Relationship tool, that allows you to connect two topics with a dashed line. To connect 2 topics Stomach and Food and Drink:

• Switch to the connecting mode by clicking the Insert Relationship button on the Topic Management toolbar.
• Move the mouse to a topic Stomach, it will be highlighted in orange. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the mouse to the topic Food and Drink, a dashed line will follow the pointer. When the text of the second topic will be highlighted in orange, release the mouse button.

The connection between the two topics will be kept even if you reposition the topics. To change the form of the connecting line, use the adjustment handles on the line to adjust.

You can only insert relationships in the map view. They are not displayed in the outline view.

Now we can change the style of the relationship. For this activate the Line & Fill floating dialog from the Format / Relationship menu. You can now select the relationship color, the style and width of the line, and also the type of endpoints.

Here is the final version of the map:

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