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As a project manager, you lead your team through all kinds of brainstorming sessions. Together, you tackle such tasks as identifying risks and developing mitigation strategies, determining task dependencies, or even building your work breakdown structure (WBS).

But what do you do with your brainstorming results? Do you record them on flip charts and then copy them into a document later? A text file is useful in many ways, but it's hard to represent the associative thinking from the brainstorming session in words alone.

A different approach is to use Microsoft Office Visio® 2003 to create a Brainstorming diagram that records your team’s free associative thinking process and results.

Brainstorming diagram example

Starting your brainstorming session

Before you begin your brainstorming session, you may want to brief the members of your team on what you are brainstorming about. Remind them of the goal of your project, factors that affect the project, resources available, and constraints you face. As you introduce the goal, begin creating the brainstorming diagram in Visio.

Create a brainstorming diagram in Visio

1. Open Visio 2003.
2. On the File menu, point to New, point to Brainstorming, and then click Brainstorming Diagram.
3. From Brainstorming Shapes, drag the Main Topic shape onto the drawing page. With the shape selected, type the text you want the main idea to represent.

Developing your brainstorming diagram

As your team comes up with ideas, use brainstorming topics to record and illustrate main thoughts and ideas. Topics are usually connected to other topics, but they can also exist alone. A topic that is subordinate to and connected to another topic is called a subtopic. You can have multiple levels of subtopics. Topics at the same level in the hierarchy are called peer topics.

Use topics with your brainstorming diagram

1. Select the Main Topic shape, and then, on the Brainstorming menu, click Add Subtopic. A subtopic connects to and is subordinate to the Main Topic shape.
2. Add more topics to your brainstorming diagram by doing any of the following:

   Add multiple subtopics at once

   1. Select the topic you want to add subordinate topics to, and then, on the Brainstorming menu, click Add Multiple Subtopics.
   2. In the dialog box, type text for each new topic, and press ENTER after each one. When you are finished adding all the topics you want, click OK.

   Add one topic at a time

   • Select the topic to which you want to add a same-level or subordinate topic, and then on the Brainstorming menu click Add Peer Topic or Add Subtopic.

   Add a peer topic

   • Select the topic you want to add a same-level topic to, and then, on the Brainstorming menu, click Add Peer Topic.

       Notes  

     • A peer topic is a topic added at the same level in the hierarchy as the selected topic.
     • You can also add topics, subtopics, and peer topics by clicking the appropriate buttons on the Brainstorming toolbar. If you don't see the Brainstorming toolbar, on the View menu, point to Toolbars, and then click Brainstorming.
3. Move topics by doing one of the following:

   Move a topic to a different location on the same page

   • Select the topic and drag it to the location you want on the drawing page.

     If the topic has subordinates, they move with the topic and their connectors reposition automatically.

   Move a topic and its subordinates to another page

   1. Select the top-level topic in the section of your diagram that you want to move to another page, and then, on the Brainstorming menu, click Move Topic To New Page.
   2. In the Move Topics dialog box, under Move to, click New page. Type the name you want for the new page, or keep the default, and then click OK.

      The top-level topic stays on the original drawing page with an arrow symbol to indicate that it also appears on another page. To go to the moved topic from the original page, right-click the topic, and then click Go to sub page. To navigate back to the original page from the moved topic, right-click the moved topic, and then click Go to page containing parent.

   Move a topic without its subordinates to another page

   1. Right-click the topic you want to move to another page, and then click Copy.
   2. Navigate to the page to which you want to add the topic, right-click the page, and then click Paste.

      Tip

      To move multiple topics at once without their subordinates, hold down SHIFT, and then select the topics you want to move. Right-click one of the selected topics, and then click Copy.

   Move a topic to another level

   • In the Outline Window, drag the name of the topic you want to be subordinate directly on top of the name of the topic you want to be superior.

     All subordinate topics move with the topic, and the changes are reflected in your diagram.

     Tip

     If you don't see the Outline Window on the drawing page, on the Brainstorming menu, click Outline Window.

 Note   To add or edit text in any shape in a brainstorming diagram, select the shape, and then type the text.

Add a legend to your brainstorming diagram

Add a Legend shape to your brainstorming diagram, and then add legend symbols to assign time sensitivity, status, or other identifiers to brainstorming topics. For example, you can signify importance by adding a Priority 1 symbol to certain topics, or you can flag several topics with a Needs Followup symbol. The legend symbols appear in a Legend shape that displays the symbols, their descriptions, and the number of times they appear in the diagram. Each legend symbol you add appears automatically in the Legend.

Create a legend

1. From Legend Shapes, drag the Legend shape onto the drawing page.

    Note   If there are legend symbols already on the drawing page, the Legend shape automatically displays them, along with a count and description for each one.

2. Add legend symbols to topics in your diagram.

   How

   1. From the Legend Shapes stencil, drag a legend symbol, such as Priority 1 or Task, onto the drawing page near the topic you want it to represent.

      The legend symbol appears in the Legend, along with a count and description.

      Tip

      To zoom in, hold down CTRL+SHIFT and click the shape or area you want to enlarge. To zoom out, hold down CTRL+SHIFT and right-click the shape or area.
   2. Drag the control handle from the legend symbol to a blue connection point on the topic. The control handle turns red to indicate that it's attached, or glued (glue: A property of shapes that causes them to stay connected even when one of the shapes is moved. When you attach a connector to a shape, you glue the connector.).

      The legend symbol moves with the topic when you reposition it.

      Tips

      • To detach the legend symbol from a topic, select the symbol and drag the red square away from the topic. You can attach the legend symbol to another topic by dragging the control handle to the connection point on the other topic.
      • To delete the legend symbol, select it and then press DELETE.

Finishing touches

When your team is finished brainstorming, you can polish the diagram with a few final details, such as borders, titles, notes, and background.

• Border   A border puts a frame around your brainstorming diagram, and some borders allow you to add a title and a date. To add a border, click the Borders and Titles stencil, and then drag the border from the stencil to your diagram.
• Title box   You can add a title for your brainstorming session.
• Notes  Add Note shapes from the Borders and Titles stencil.
• Background   Change the overall appearance by replacing the blank grid background with one that is more stylized. To change the background, click the Background stencil, drag a Background to your diagram, and then click Yes. To change the background back to blank, use Background None.

Distributing your diagram

When your team has finished creating the brainstorming diagram, you can send it as an e-mail attachment to the team members or to others for review, or you can save it as a Web page and have it published to your team's SharePoint site or intranet site.

Send the brainstorming diagram for review

1. In Visio, on the File menu, point to Send To.
2. Click Mail Recipient (as Attachment).
3. An e-mail message is automatically generated with the brainstorming diagram attached and the file name in the subject line. Add the e-mail addresses for the members of your team or your reviewers, and then click Send.

Save as a Web page

1. On the File menu, click Save as Web Page.
2. Enter a file name, and then click Save.
3. An HTML (.htm file) version of your brainstorming diagram is automatically opened in your Web browser.