For small to medium businesses who are using MindManager 8 for project planning and keeping tabs on projects, one feature which you will want to explore is the Task Management features built into MindManager 8. As a consultant and small business owner I often am doing small projects that may not require a dedicated project management tool- but I still will need a way to keep on top of my projects and tasks. For this reason, one of new features which I am using more and more in MindManager 8 is the ability to use the Roll Up feature when using the Task Information pane. If you are like me and using MindManager 8 to help you plan and keep on task, then you will find the the new Roll Up feature to be indispensable. All of the task information features can be found in the Task Info pane within MindManager 8.To get started use MindManager 8 to brainstorm the tasks for the project. Once you have organized the tasks and sequenced them in the order that you will perform the task, select the Central topic and Open the Task Info Pane. In my example, I selected the central topic, Revise Assistive Technology DVD and from the Task Info Pane selected "Roll up task info to here." You also want to make sure that you have checked off Show past-due as: and Show as-risk as:- which I will explain later.
Next go through your tasks and set the number of days each task will take in your mind map. For the first task, you can use the Calendar to set the Start date for the project. It is best to leave the end date blank and let MindManager 8 calculate the end dates based on your task dependencies. By default MindManager 8 will set each task to 1 day duration which is easily changed in the Task Info Pane. For the final step you will use the Relationship feature to link your tasks in the order that you would like to complete them. By default MindManager 8 will set the dependency to Finishto Start and you will see a little FS icon on the relationship line to denote this. If you would like to fine tune the dependency relationship this too can be done in the Task Info Pane. Once you have set the dependencies for your tasks you will see that under your Central topic the Start date and calculated finish date with the cumulative number of work days to complete the task under the topic.
Once you start using your mind map to track your project's progress you will begin to see the real value of the Roll Up feature in MindManager 8. As you input the task completion percentages into your mind map, MindManager 8 will roll up the information to the central topic allowing you to get a quick overview of your overall progress and visually see which tasks are past due or at risk of not completing on time. MindManager 8 will display icons on those task which may be past due or at risk of not be completed which can give you a quick overview of where you need to concentrate your efforts. You can watch the video tutorial here to see how to use the Roll Up feature. I welcome your comment and how you are using this powerful feature in MindManager 8.
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4 comments:
This is a great overview of task management within MindManager 8. The only thing I'd like to add is how easy it is to export and sync tasks with Outlook.
Whilst Mindjet seem to want to steer people towards linking to tasks in Outlook (which eassentially means you have to manage then through the Outlook interface) rather than syncing tasks created in MM, the latter works fairly well.
Once you have set up the tasks, go to the Export tab and select Sync Task Info with Outlook. In the dialogue box tick all the options except Import new tasks from Outlook and under task selection choose Only topics that use Task Information. MM will then request access to Outlook and if all has gone according to plan the tasks should appear in the Outlook Tasks folder.
I've set up a view in Outlook which shows only the active tasks which gives me a nicely formatted list of the tasks I've created in MM. They're also synchronised to my phone in turn from Outlook.
If you do this its best to use Outlook only for simple monitoring, minor editing and ticking off completed tasks and to use MM for major editing or creating new tasks. Incidentally if you use categories in Outlook there's a neat trick for importing these to MM which I'll explain if anyone's interested!
Alex
Hi Alex:
Thanks for your comments and sharing your strategy. I would be interested in sharing your trick for importing your tasks into MindManager 8.
Brian
Brian,
Thanks. I stumbled across this technique whilst looking for a simple way to import a list of categories directly into MM8 (as far as I can tell there isn't one). This approach is especially useful if you already have an extensive list of categories either in Outlook or elsewhere.
This approach works with Outlook 2003. I understand that there are quite a few changes in how Outlook 2007 handles categories but I haven't tested it yet.
Anyway with MM8 and Outlook 2003 the steps are.
1. If you have a list of categories outside Outlook, save them as a text list separated by commas.
2. Open up MindManager and create a "dummy" task called, say, import categories. Give it start and due dates so it is recognised as a task by MM and so you can find it easily in Outlook.
3. Using the steps I described in my previous post, synchronise MM with Outlook. The dummy task should be imported to Outlook.
4. If you need to import categories to Outlook, go to the comma-delimited list you set up previously, highlight and copy it.
5. Open the dummy task in Outlook and click on the categories button. If you are importing new categories to Outlook, click in the blank box under "Item(s) belong to these categories", paste the list and click the "Add to List" button. They will be added to the list and automatically ticked. If you already have categories in Outlook, tick all the ones that you want to import to MM.
6. Save and close the task. Go back to MM and repeat the syncing operation. This should import the task and all the categories to MM.
7. In MM open up the Map Markers tab. You should see a new Map Marker Group called Categories and if you expand this all the categories that were attached to the dummy task shoud be listed. If necessary, click on the Categories heading and sort the list alphabetically.
8. These categories are now available to all tasks and topics created in that map. To use them in other maps, either use the map to which you imported them as a map template for new maps, or for an existing map, import the dummy task as a topic. If you do the latter, however, the categories will appear under the General Text Markers rather than the Categories heading (you can create a Categories group and use the mouse to move them).
9. When you are finished you can delete the dummy topic.
The process is a lot simpler than it sounds and in theory you only need to do it once!
Alex
Hi Brian, I use the task to outlook link a lot, occasionally with JCVGantt Pro for those who insist on Gantt charts (which I don't like!).
It's also useful to know that you don't have to fully qualify the task for Rollup to be helpful. I often just use the % complete without dates etc as a simple progress monitor.
If you'd like more detail on my process for time reporting the link on this comment will take you to an index of my related posts. My biggest tip re Outlook linking is only link one map, your project overview, otherwise Outlook can get rather muddled.
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