Posted by Vic in >$ 150-$300, >$ 300-$1000, Gantt chart, Mac, Mac OS s/w, Mind maps, Our Faves, Windows | 11 comments
(13 votes, average: 4.38 out of 5)
Loading...MindManager is the most popular and well-established commercial information mapping software and is in use in major corporations worldwide. It has numerous third-party add-ons for enhanced project management, ideas capture and content management. It is business and project management oriented.
MindManager Plus supports on-line collaborative mind mapping.
Price: $349
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I use many mapping products, but this is the one I come back to time and again so it definitely deserves to be flagged “Fave”. |
More screenshots and details for MindManager on Mind-mapping.org
This is one of the Top Picks
Top Picks are tools that are in the mainstream of mapping or are significant
because they have special attributes that you won’t easily find in other tools.
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I’ve used MindManager / MindJet off and on since version 7. Early on, I tried all kinds of creative things with it and settled on using it 95% of the time for brainstorming, small project status management, and web meeting facilitation. I find its ability to export to MS Project semi-useful. However, it doesn’t export many fields over and makes a mess of the duration values (turning the default of days into hours). Similarly when exporting to MS Word, it creates its own font types that I have to go back and convert to Word types if I need to turn the content into a consistent formal document for publishing.
It seems that over the years, MindJet has taken the path of Microsoft by adding a lot of useless bloat instead of fine tuning some of their mediocre features (Maybe they think its better to have a plethora of 2nd rate features instead of a focused set of exceptional functionality). Versions 7, 8, & 9 had a nasty habit of crashing my computer (2 different ones). When I complained, they said I needed better computers. Now I’m on version 12 and this installation slows down my boot up process and takes forever to save updates when I’m on WiFi.
Recently, a business analyst on my project showed interest in the product. However the price steered him to Xmind, where he’s been able to do most of what I do using a free version.
Seems like a fair summary to me. I have just updated to MindManager v.14 and plan to review it sometime on the blog, but I can’t easily test if the transfer to MS Project is now complete and correct as I don’t use MS Project.
I use Xmind Pro more than MindManager, myself.
Roy
PS – It’s me replying, not Vic, because I recently took this site over from him.
I am user of mind mapping programs since almost 3 years. I am a little bit concerned that the Mindmanager, being the most recommended for project management, the free layout is missing. Auto layout is frustrating. Novamind has this preferred feature but I see it less recommended. Is there anyway to disable the auto layout?
There is no way of turning off auto-layout that I am aware of. I wish there were, it annoys me as well.
Auto-layout as an option is very desirable – we don’t want to have to place every node manually all the time – but there are times when it would be very helpful to override the function, and make good use of open areas of the map that MindManager simply does not allow us to occupy. Nodes can be moved manually, but on either side of the map, the limitation of manual spacing seems to be based on a simplistic calculation of vertical positioning alone. If there’s a node with branches that occupy space vertically, nothing else on that side of the map can overlap, even if there is plenty of space to move the node into.
Within the limits of my knowledge, the best you can do is right click a node, choose Format Topic, and then adjust spacing of the subsidiary branches in the Size and Margins, and Subtopics Layouts tabs. But that still won’t allow overlap.
That said, it’s hard to beat MindManager for project management.
I used MindManager from version 4 through version 7. Its evolution from a ‘brainstorming’ tool to a project management tool has caused me to look at other products. The inability to easily display or work with equations and the high price is a barrier when teaching sciences.
I use MindManager in the early stages of a project, mainly during the thinking, ideation and planning phases. Then I import the .mmap file to Topicscape as the basis for collection information and references to support the project.
After several years using both NovaMind and MindJet, I find that for my needs, MindJet with the complementary Project Management add-on is the most useful. The integration with the MS Office Suite makes it an overall winner in the corporate world.
On the downside, it is rather pricey and because of this, it is a barrier to sharing mindmaps with non-users.
Thanks for taking time to tell us about your experience.
There is a viewer for MindManager, which anyone can download for free from here:
http://www.mindjet.com/support/tutorials/viewer
That page says “The standalone viewer version is based on MindManager 7 for Windows and MindManager 7 for Mac but can open files created in MindManager 9 or 8. For a Mindmanager 9 or 8 version viewer, use the trial version of MindManager 9. When the trial expires, it will still function as a read-only viewer.”
They seem to be in two minds about which should be used, but this does mean that maps can be shared and used interactively, though not edited, of course, by those using the viewer.
I am a big Mind Manager user as well, I have tried 20+ different mind mapping tools out there and the only one I will use.
Mind Manager is by no means perfect, it is expensive, especially when you want to do shared maps via catalyst and some features need a lot of work to be effective.
I have been using MindManager since 1996 almost daily to manage projects; research; creating and publishing web sites; recording and publishing events, speeches, presentations and discussions.
I have training users since 2002.
There are many great features and recent developments such as Catalyst, Sharing, Presenting, built in Gantt charts but I really wish they would develop the Notes editor, Word and Web Exports.
The first mind mapping tool I used after Freemind and the one I’m still using. Whilst it’s ongoing development can lead to many frustrations, it still works best in a business setting. Compared with many mind mapping tools, MindManager seems to gain acceptance more readily as a piece of serious software.