Action Map- MindMeister

There are several tools and resources I use as an Instructional Designer. My go-to resource is a book by Cathy Moore called “Map It”. In this book she talks about a critical step, where you create an Action Map. The premise is that before you talk about a course, you must find out what is the customers goal or performance outcome. It must be performance centered and reflect something that can be tracked. For example, someone may say “We need training for our customer service representatives.” Focusing on creating an action map would begin the process by asking back “What’s the problem? How will we know we’ve solved it?” This avoids creating an information dump in training that leads to no real behavior or performance change.

A good beginning is to say “This current measure will increase or decrease by a specific number or perfect by a specific date as the people in a group perform a function.” To put it in the terms of customer services “The resolved calls will increase 10% by January as the Customer Service staff use the software for tracking calls properly”.

Creating an action map will allow you to list specific visible behaviors that can be observed and tracked which is why it is called an action map. It lists what do people need to do, and why aren’t they currently doing it? In the middle or center of your map will be the business goal and all actions and sub-actions will branch off that.

There are several program you can use to create an action map, and my favorite is MindMeister . The basic plan is free and you can have up to 3 mind maps. Take a look at the screen shot from the beginning process of an action map using MindMeister. You can customize the colors, look and feel, and it helps work to brainstorm. It is excellent to give a visual representation of business objective and the actions required to achieve them.