Product Reviews
Recombinant Mind Maps
Kutchka Templating extends a brainstorming tool
Kutchka Templating is an add-in for MindManager (which I looked at in
Developer Central #3, http://www.mcpmag.com/newsletter/article.asp?EditorialsID=67).
Perhaps the best way to explain Kutchka Templating is to say that it enables
you to easily produce recombinant Mind Maps. You can load two or three
(or a dozen, for that matter) Mind Maps, and then use Kutchka to pick
and choose the branches that you'd like to combine into a new map. The
branches come over complete with all their information, notes, icons,
and so on.
Kutchka also allows you to assign simple predecessor/successor relationships
as you add branches. This lets you turn a Mind Map into sort of a rough-and-ready
dependency chart. Automatic hyperlinking lets you proceed through a list
of tasks in the order that they're linked.
The basic Mind Map is an excellent tool for brainstorming. What Kutchka
Templating brings to the table is a way to take chunks of past brainstorms
and re-use them, and a way to adapt Mind Mapping to process-oriented projects
by adding the notion of flow. After spending a few minutes with the tutorial,
I didn't have any problem using its capabilities, which are well-integrated
into the MindManager shell. All in all, a nice little addition to the
native capabilities of MindManager.
About the Author
Mike Gunderloy, MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, is a former MCP columnist and the author of numerous development books.