Mind maps are used for exploring, clarifying, explaining, or planning. They are an effective way to gather and depict information. This could be information that we want to learn or knowledge that we want to share. We may want to focus on certain points, such as abstracting a number or details. Alternatively, we may want to plan our work ahead or explain how things work in detail. Brainstorming and finding connections between different ideas, solving problems, and creating new ideas, mind maps are a useful tool in our professional or personal lives. They go well beyond software development and they can be used in any human endeavor that requires critical thinking and decision making.
A mind map could be anything that organizes our thoughts — drawings, diagrams, tables, keywords, pictures, graphs, Wikipages, and so on. It can be done with a pen and a paper, a marker and a board, or using mind mapping tools like Coggle, MindMeister, Ayoa, MindNote, XMind, etc.