XMind

Brilliant ideas are what separates the regular, workaday employee from the true visionary, but it's rare for a brilliant notion to come out of your head fully formed and ready to deploy. Creativity is a difficult process, one that requires filtering through countless thoughts in search of the one that works, being willing to kill your darling no matter how good they sound in theory, and honing down these ideas to a sharp surface. Great ideas mean nothing without the means to structure them, and XMind exists to bridge that gap: to provide users with the tools they need to transform fantastic ideas into actionable results. While it's especially great for larger offices looking to collaborate on big ideas, it can also be useful for individuals and smaller teams who are looking for a little more structure in their creative process. XMind falls under the category of "mind mapping" software - applications that take the raw and unfiltered ideas that come from the left side of the brain and assign them to the sort of graphs, flowcharts, and infographics that can be more readily processed and sharpened by the right side of the brain. The quality of the maps available in products like these are one of the most crucial determiners of how effective the software is, and XMind doesn't disappoint in this regard. The developers understand that everyone thinks differently and that varying projects require varying methodologies. That's why they include eight blank maps and 20 templates right out of the box. Maps are the most basic component of the software and can be pretty neatly woven together to meet the needs of larger projects. They include a variety of charts that include organizational and matrix styles, and they're a great choice for a team or individual who has a solid understanding of what they need and wants to build it from scratch. Templates, on the other hand, are designed to provide a little more direction, and they do a great job of covering the most common functions that teams will be looking for throughout the creative process. Whether you're looking for planning, scheduling, or strategy, you're likely to find a template that matches your need. The design of both the maps and templates is incredibly slick and professional, offering a more aesthetically impressive and streamlined alternative to traditional spreadsheets and walls of text. XMind's strength is in its versatility. Maps can be built into maps to a nearly limitless degree. This makes it incredibly easy to create a well structured and complex network of interrelated ideas but implement them in such a way that they're clean and easily accessible. And the ability to quickly snatch up ideas and file them for later inclusion in a map is useful for creative thinkers, doubly so since XMind coordinates well across multiple devices.