It is obvious that Visual Think really can do something helpful to Project Management. XMind, as a great Visual Think/Brainstorming Software, can also benefit our Project Management via its friendly design, many powerful but easy-using features. In the coming several blogs, we’ll focus on how to make full use of XMind in managing projects.

Of all the features that XMind owns, Taskinfo, Gantt View, Powerful Filter, Map Merge, Presentation Mode, Fishbone Chart, Spreadsheet chart, Multiple Sheets/Workbook, Brainstorming mode/Timer* do play important roles in Project Management. Here goes the first one: Taskinfo and Gantt View.

When running a project, there are numerous things need to organize, such as: steps in the whole project, business requirements analysis in measurable goals, financial analysis of the costs and benefits, task assignment, task priority and so on. Therefore, how to get all these things done is not that easy.

Now, you may need XMind, a visual think tool. Suppose that in Executing Stage of a Project, drawing a mind map is very necessary to carry out all the things planed to do, such as business requirements, functions as it was intended, acceptable quality standards of the product, time and budget constraints, and all others aspects. Then we need to list all tasks, and each task has a start and end date, has its own priority and progress. It’s time for us to use Taskinfo. We can select the task and choose the start/end date, priority, and progress percentage for a certain task in the Taskinfo View, and even add the person in “Assigned to”*.

Everything is in order. Click “Show Gantt Chart” under View menu, we will easily check all these tasks and detailed information. Gantt Chart in XMind is a special Viewer illustrating a project schedule, showing the timelines of the tasks, ordering all tasks with their priorities. When does this task start, when does it end. Which tasks are urgent, should be done at once, which have not to. What’s the progress of a task. Moreover, moving a mouse to a task, we will see who are in charge of it in the future. Here, we can understand fully at one glance. I guess it will be a better idea for us to use this view to communicate/discuss with other members than just watching it by ourselves.

Apparently, you may be aware of that Taskinfo and Gantt View can do better performance when they work together. That’s definitely true. Finally, it seems that arranging and managing your tasks is not that hard.

How Effective and valuable approaches for Project Management, would you like to have the experience by yourself? Just do it, don’t be hesitate. Whatever you think of them, please make your voice heard.

*The features, Brainstorming/Timer and Assigned to, will be available in the coming version.
**Taskinfo and Gantt View are both available in XMind Pro only.