A map template for outcome-based planning

Nick Duffill shares a very cool way to do outcome-based planning -- to visualize our relationship with a business event, such as solving a problem, launching a product, delivering a presentation or establishing a new process. Most mind mapping software programs, he points out, tend to cluster topics on the right and left sides of the main topic, which enables you to create a map that displays the converging factors that lead to the event on the right side, and the divergent consequences of that event occuring on the left side of the main topic.

"This... gives us simple way to correlate the consequences listed on the right with the actions and decisions on the left, to ensure that we will deliver on expectations. This is hardly a new idea, but formal statement and verification of requirements is not often used in general business. All we want is a simple visual device that can easily be explained to almost anyone and conveys a real sense of the consequences of decisions and actions."

Nick's post includes several example maps to help you to visualize how this event or outcome-based planning can be done in a visual map. Very cool stuff, Nick!