Personal Map: Start using it right now :)

The Personal Map idea comes from mind mapping. Mind mapping is a simple but powerful technique that allows anyone who can hold a pen to visualize the relationships between concepts. It's is an also a Management 3.0 tool (you can find more about it here: https://management30.com/practice/personal-maps).

How does it work?

• Start by splitting the group in pairs.
• Take an empty sheet of paper or a blank screen on your computer and writing the your colleague’s name in the middle.
• Write categories of interest around your colleague’s name: home, education, work, hobbies, family, friends, goals and values.
• Then expand the mind map by adding the relevant things you know about this person. Or ask for the person to fulfilled the items.
• After that, present your colleague to the group.

As you can see it is designed to make it easier for you and your team to get to know each other, it should help you to create a pleasant environment for the team.

Personal Mapping it is a good way to start meetings, where the purpose is to know each other or break the ice. I have seen plenty of workshops asking for the audience to work in group of 2 or 3, each of them creates the personal map from the colleague and present it to the others after the exercise is done.

Another way you can use it is in a Team Building session. What would be a greater time than that? I have been using this tool for the past five years with agile teams.

You can create a template on a virtual board (using Miro or Mural, for example), share with the team and ask them to fulfilled each point. Give them 10 minutes to do it.

After this exercise, kindly encourage them to present themselves, explaining to their fellows what they have included on the board and why that is important to them. Here an example using Miro:

I have done this before and the feedback was great. People say that the feeling of being heard is good, the opportunity to meet their colleagues generates sense of empathy and also, they noticed shared interests and hobbies.

I personally like using personal map when I introduce myself in the beginning of a presentation. I generate my personal map in a ppt slide and display it for the audience explaining each point, like the image below (Yes, this is my personal map):

Check it out how I did it, I actually did not write down anything, just some images were included. I like to do that because I strongly believe this is funnier!

When I am presenting in pair, I do something similar. But, besides presenting myself I present my college’s personal map and she/he presents mine. It is a quicker and more surprise way to say “Hi, this is me” for your audience.

Normally, people enjoy this way of self-introduction because it is different from the usual: Display information using bullets or worse long texts.

I hope you have enjoyed this tool – Easy, powerful and feasible to use it ??.