Have you seen the way some people are managing their projects nowadays? They simply doodle something on paper and expect everybody to understand what that means! And you know what? Many of these doodlers create really practical overviews. Their visuals help you to understand what is going on and what direction you are moving with your project.

The most important factor in creating a practical and clear visual project overview is identifying the key concepts. Yes, it is all about the content. The visual format you use isn't that important. What you need to create is an overview. Some people use mindmaps for this. You can use concept maps, flow charts or summaps as well. All these visual mapping formats are extremely helpful in creating overview.

The most important reason you should use a visual format is because it gives you a complete overview in one single glance. You see the important issues, key concepts and relationships.

Another reason for using visuals has to be that it is so much easier to organize your thoughts, ideas, resources and information when you are only using key concepts.

What I like most of all, is that this one overview helps me not just in managing my project or projects. I add dates and dependencies to the items at the same time. This way I can overview not only the project, but also SEE what time-line I will follow.

A small tip for you when you do this on a computer... Take your visual map, a mindmap for instance, and put all the items in an orderly fashion according to the start and due date. You place items from the start of the project on the left hand side and the future items at the right hand side. You can immediately see what you are when working on your project!

The two most important reasons people won't use visuals for project management are these: they believe others will not understand it and they themselves feel uncomfortable using visuals.

Let me ask you this: When you ask a child to draw something (a day at the beach for instance), do they create a picture that shows you exactly what they will do or did? Of course! And the best thing is... you know what they mean with the image (that is, when they can draw a little bit of course).

Don't feel uncomfortable. Step out of your comfort zone. Create a visual and use that. Others will understand your visual, I am sure about that. You should feel confident on this as well.

As you can see, there are pros and cons about making visuals for managing your project. The pros are something everybody benefits from. The cons are only valid inside your head. Don't limit yourself! You are ready to visually manage all your projects!