Concept Process Mapping

Concept mapping is useful in a planning and evaluation project as it is often a task to make the situation recognizable and clear. To have a common idea of the project is often difficult too. It is in this scenario, concept mapping is a boon as it encourages the participant group to stay on the task and the conceptual process is expressed in the language of the participants rather than the planner or evaluator. Now, this brings us to the second part of the question, which is about when these maps are useful. These maps are used in many situations, with project formation, strategic planning, product development, decision-making, market analysis and measurement development being the main ones.

The steps that make up the concept mapping process are:

• Planning
  This is the first step in this process and takes place before the beginning of the actual group process. At the start of this process, the facilitator works with people involved to decide on who will participate in the process. Remember it is good to encourage a wide range of relevant people in order to ensure that various viewpoints are taken into consideration.
• Statement Generation
  It is after the focus and participant statements have been decided that the participants develop a large set of statements. These statements that describe the focus form a number of different aspects. Brainstorming is typically used in this process.
• Statements Are Now Structured
  Once generated, the participants organize the statements to check if they are related to each other. This is done in two processes - sorting and rating. In the first process, each participant sorts the statement into piles according to their judgment. In the next process, the participants rate each other on some dimension, whose focus is decided in the planning.
• Statements Are Represented
  It is at this point that the stakeholder's team is ready to make the map. At this stage, statistical analysis is used, the two kinds being, multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. Using the first type of analysis, each statement is represented as a single separate point on the map. In this case, the statements that are piled together by more participants are put closer to each other on the map meaning that the distance between the points on the map stands for the degree of interrelationships among the statements. In the second analysis that is called cluster analysis, the outcomes are portioned into cluster or groups. The concepts that are grouped into a cluster are the ones that are strongly interrelated to each other or reflect similar ideas and concepts. A cluster analysis represents conceptual domain!
• Maps Are Interpreted
  As the name suggests, this step involves the reading of maps and lists. The lists and maps that are interpreted are:
  Lists:
  • The Statement List
  • The Cluster List
  Maps
  • The Point Map
  • The Point Rating Map
  • The Cluster Maps
  • The Cluster Rating Map
• Maps Are Utilized
  In this step, the stakeholder group uses the maps to address the area that they were focusing on earlier. The map that has been created is useful in both evaluation and planning. It helps in planning by showing the action plan, assessment of needs, planning of the group structure or the program development. In the second category, it displays the basis for sampling, developing measures and/or outcome assessment.

So, isn't concept process mapping a great tool in strategic planning. This has helped to an increased understanding of a subject and numerous organizations are using it.