Case Study
Embarcadero Technologies
“MindManager is the orchestra-
tion piece that allows us to pour
all our ideas into one spot. Each
map provides a clear product
roadmap all the various stake-
holders can use to navigate the
core set of requirements.”
ROI
Mindjet MindManager improves
Embarcadero’s ability to move quickly
back and forth from conceptual models
of new products to very specific feature
sets and timelines. It also improves the
way project managers communicate
feature behavior to engineers, resulting
in optimal feature implementation,
providing the company with an agile,
interactive project management
methodology.
Company Profile
Embarcadero Technologies
(www.embarcadero.com) provides a
suite of award-winning products that
enable organizations to efficiently and
accurately architect, integrate, administer,
and ensure critical enterprise applica-
tions and their underlying databases.
Embarcadero customers include global
corporations, leading financial institutions
and government agencies throughout
the world.
Project Management/Software Development
A leading software development company uses
Mindjet® MindManager® to simplify new product
development
In the highly competitive software market, a company’s ability to reduce the
time from initial concept to finished product is critical to success. Embarcadero
Technologies relies on Mindjet MindManager to simplify its software development
process, keep everyone on track and speed time to market.
“MindManager is the orchestration piece that allows us to pour all our ideas
into one place,” says Greg Keller, vice president of product management. “It’s the
document we constantly come back to in order to gauge how we are doing—our
way of staying connected to initial, current, proposed and backlogged features.
One MindManager map can contain our ideas, proposed timelines and assignments,
and links to documents on our internal SharePoint server. Each map is the central
information repository for that project.”
Mapping out new product features and development timelines
Keller says the company begins using Mindjet MindManager at the start of every
project. Typically, the company has five or six teams of ten or so developers working
on software development projects. To get each team headed in the right direction,
Keller sits down with the software product team manager and one or two other
team members, projects a MindManager map on a screen, and the team starts
brainstorming.
“First we map out all the major functional areas,” Keller says. “We start at the high
level, then dig in deep in terms of the actual pieces of componentry we have to
build out.”
Once the team members have a good sense of the feature set they want, they
start allocating resources and estimating how long each part of the project will take.
Mindjet MindManager enables them to capture in one quickly understood visual
document all the product features, time lines and resource allocations for that product.
As part of this process, the team will also draw from Mindjet MindManager’s library
of graphic icons to embed into the maps quickly understood visual cues. For example,
they attach numbered visual icons to indicate during which of the six prescribed
project phases each feature will be built.
Filtering a mountain of information
With all project related details in one document, Keller and his team then use the fil-
tering tools inside of Mindjet MindManager to “slice and dice” the map to view par-
ticular project information. This allows them to temporarily shrink what can become
a very large body of information to just the pieces of the project they need to see at
that moment.
By searching for the name of a team member, for example, they immediately find
all the tasks and deadlines assigned to that one person. A search for red flags will
reveal all the issues that need immediate attention.
Every 30 days, Keller and his team filter the map by numbered icon to see which
features are on the schedule for the next project phase. Then they use a plug-in to
export this filtered information to Excel. The team then uses the resulting spread-
sheets to track daily work.
Creating a transparent project history and hierarchy
Keller says Mindjet MindManager’s visual interface offers an excellent way to see
the complete history of each development process, and to help teams understand
how and why certain decisions were made.

Challenge
To manage complex, fast-changing soft-
ware development projects in a way that
keeps the process focused, transparent
and immediately accessible to all stake-
holders.
Solution
Embarcadero uses Mindjet MindManager
to create clear visual maps for each
software development project. These
documents keep the development teams
connected to the project plan and serve
as a central repository for all project-
related information.
Product
Mindjet MindManager
Result
Embarcadero is able to create high-level
views of individual projects that help
keep development on track. The ability
to concisely document each project
helps the company bring better software
products to market sooner, while ensuring
that lessons learned on current projects
will be applied to future ones.
Mindjet GmbH
European Headquarters
Siemensstrasse 30
63755 Alzenau
Germany
Tel.: +49(0)6023-9645-0
Fax: +49(0)6023-9645-19
info.eu@mindjet.de
www.mindjet.com/eu
Mindjet UK Ltd.
Peterbridge House
Northampton, NN4 7HB
UK
Tel.:+44 (0) 1604-638666
Fax:+44 (0) 1604-230910
info@mindjet.co.uk
www.mindjet.co.uk
“Sometimes we’ll add a task to the main map before we have a clear understanding
of how we are going to actually accomplish it,” he says. “We’ll add subtopics that
capture the questions we have about the task. Then, as we figure out how to do it,
we’ll put the answers in the map as well.” Such answers can take the form of links
to internal documents or Web sites, or they can be inserted into the map as
comments or additional subtopics.
Project management with Mindjet MindManager
“It used to be that we might look back at a certain aspect of a project and not really
understand why we solved a problem one way instead of another,” Keller says.
“Now we can go to the map, look at that decision branch and see exactly why we
followed that path. Or, we might review the information and decide that next time
we should go a different direction because of what we know now. We add this new
understanding to the main map, as well.”
Improving decision-making
Before Embarcadero began using Mindjet MindManager, Keller says, the company’s
project management process was more ad hoc, relying on verbal interaction and
various documents to manage projects. This approach worked fine when the company
was small. But as the number of developers grew, Keller needed to find a management
process that was more agile and interactive. The company’s use of MindManager, in
conjunction with a software development process known as the Scrum method, has
enabled it to keep close track of each project while still keeping the process as
transparent as possible.
“MindManager allows project managers to literally map out their thoughts on how
any given feature should behave,” he says. “This clarity helps them more precisely
articulate their needs to engineering which, in turn, helps engineering ensure that all
requirements are met and that feature implementation is as fluid as possible for the
end user.”
Overall, Keller says, Mindjet MindManager is a critical tool allows his software
development teams to move from very conceptual models of new products to
very specific feature sets and timelines to implement those concepts—and then to
bounce back and forth between the two. “There are lots of applications and project
management tools out there that give you a hierarchical view of information,” he
says. “But what you lose with these tools is the ability to see the whole picture—or
just a piece of the picture at a time. MindManager allows us to see both, and that’s
a real benefit.”
To find out how other leading organizations have benefited from Mindjet MindManager,
visit www.mindjet.com/casestudies.