What’s Been Done So Far?

If you look at the original diagram I created, there where a few different components to this tracking platform (local storage, data collection scripts/api integration, and the presentation layer).

• Local Storage – Personal copy of data stored in MySQL.  I created the local storage piece almost immediately after writing the article in Aug.  I chose to use MySQL as a database, and created a schema that was suited towards collecting my initial data set of interest: data from my FitBit and WiThings scale.  The schema accounts for storing both daily and intraday activity for calories burned/consumed, activity score (+very active, moderately active, and lightly active), total distance, steps taken, sleep, and weight.  I’ve now created about a dozen or so SQL queries that will generate useful reports on this historical data.

• Data collection scripts/API Integration. I immediately leveraged the Perl FitBit API I originally wrote last April to sync data from the FitBit site to my local database.  I created a nightly cron job that will request the daily + intraday stats and save to the db using Perl::DBI.  I also took a similar approach with the WiThings scale.  Although I haven’t created a Perl wrapper yet for Withings, they do publish and easy to use REST API for getting access to your weight.  This script also runs on a nighly basis and saves weight information to the local database.

• Presentation Layer.  This has been the most complicated piece so far.  I’ve created a Java-based webapp using Spring 3.0/Jetty to build the analytics UI.  For now the UI is built with 2 major views: a dashboard, and reporting interface.  The dashboard displays both historical and daily information in a visually-pleasing format using Google Charts.  You can see a daily snapshot (+ weekly, quarterly, and yearly views) and see stats on your activity, distance, steps taken, weight, sleep and intraday stats (activity and sleep level on an hourly basis).  I’ve also built a light home-grown reporting interface that integrates with the Google Visualization API and easily builds dynamic tables and charts based on the provided SQL queries.

Screenshots

• Dashboard View

• Historical Stats – Multiple Activity Logs

• Historical Stats – Distance Bar Chart

• Daily Stats

• Intraday Stats

• Reporting

Immediate Next Steps?

The current code is fairly stable and mostly ready for a demo.  Before I make it live I’m planning on adding a few major features:

1. Geo-Location support – I’ve been tracking GPS coordinates since I purchased my QStarz device in September.  I’m thinking of adding a couple Map and GPS tracklog views to the Dashboard.  And, this could lead to some interesting location-based reporting as well.  I have a ton of saved .gpx files, so it’s a matter of writing an integration script to parse and store in the db.  And, some lightweight presentation layer to dynamically generate .KML and overlay on top of Google Maps.
2. Simple mobile interface.  I’d like to be able to access the interface using my iPhone and having some light interface to get quick stats and graphs would be nice.
3. Come up with a catchy project name.  As I stated earlier, although the original scope of this was for fitness tracking, this type of platform can be used for tracking any type of personal statistics.

Future Roadmap

1. Tracking detailed sleep info from MyZeo.  Since I wrote the original vision I had the chance to do a review for the MyZeo sleep device.  I’ve also created a Perl API so it’s simply a matter of writing the integration script to start recording in the MySQL DB.
2. Tracking workout info from my iPhone app – iFitness.  I also have about 10 years worth of workout information either stored from previous products (like CrossTrainer) or written down.
3. Tracking heartrate info from my Garmin heartrate monitor watch.
4. Integrate with the new official Fitbit API.  Since I wrote my initial (unofficial) Perl API, fitbit has embraced the developer community and released a support API (yes!)

The Fitbit team is working hard on manufacturing and distribution and have future plans for releasing an official API. Although the website does offer most of the features you’ll need, you can not download your data. The goals is to have an API that will allow you to do this and also integrate some other applications. I spent some time coding last weekend and have create an OO Perl API to access all Fitbit information and even download historical data in CSV format. I’ve setup a ‘Fitbit Hack’ project. Check out:

http://eric-blue.com/projects/fitbit/

• Determine the doc extension and perform the appropriate conversion (.doc.pdf.xls) or redirect using an external app (mindmapviewer or Google books)
• Assign conversion commands to be executed for each doc type
• Before doc display, lookup converted doc in cache to speed up render time (use MD5 hash on the title)

I’ve created a .zip file(4.1MB) of the entire Doc Browser sample code.  It contains the simple .CGI Conversion script, along with jQueryFileTree for rendering the doc tree, FlexPaper, and some sample documents.

Like most people, I have a large number of personal documents in a variety of formats (PDF, Excel, Word, RTF, PowerPoint, etc.). For the typical user, organizing these documents in a ‘My Documents’ folder and having MS Office/Open Office/Adobe Acrobat installed simply gets the job done. However, I’ve been looking for some sort of “Web 2.0″ solution to view my documents while I’m on the go. And, since my knowledge manager is web-based, I’d like a way to browse and embed personal documents directly in my wiki without needing any special software.

I’ve been impressed with services like Scribd (think YouTube for Documents). Most people have probably already used Scribd, but in case you haven’t, this service allows you to upload your documents (variety of formats supported) and view them online in Flash format. The beauty of this service is that you can also share documents and embed directly inside you website/blog/wiki. While this works great for sharing certain types of documents, it’s not really appropriate for uploading my entire collection of documents (especially since many contain personal information). So, I decided to figure out how to create my own hosted document/book viewer like Scribd or Google Books.

Example

The following embedded document browser was actually fairly straight forward to make. In a nutshell, the viewer takes a PDF file that is converted to Flash (using SWFTools – pdf2swf), and then uses an open source flash viewer called FlexPaper to help with navigation.

The navigation bar is fairly straight forward. You can page up/down, go directly to a given page, zoom, print, and even select a thumbnail mode. It does currently lack the ability to view full screen, search (Search was JUST added to version 1.1) or select text, so I create additional option to view in HTML (using wvHtml) and view the frame full screen.

Open Source To The Rescue

When I first start exploring ways to view all my docs in a web interface, I didn’t initially focus on flash. I figured it would be too difficult to have the end product look like Scribd (I was way wrong). So, I evaluated a number of Linux command-line utilities to convert documents on the fly. The following is a decent list of applications that can help with any of your conversion needs:

• wvWare – A library for converting Word docs. The utility I used most was wvHtml to convert from .doc directly to .html.
• xlHtml – Converts Excel spreadsheets to HTML.
• PDFtoHtml – Converts PDF documents to HTML
• UnRTF – Converts RTF to text or HTML
• SWFTools – A collection of utilities to generate and work with SWF (Flash) files

There are apparently some ways to convert between various formats using Open Office on the command-line (e.g. JODConvert, PyODConverter, Unoconv, etc.). However, I haven’t yet spent time evaluating these approaches since my current setup seems to be working pretty well.

DocBrowser Project

I put up a very preliminary Document Browser prototype at http://eric-blue.com/projects/docbrowser/. The interface uses JQuery and JQueryFileTree to make entire document folder available for browsing just like Windows Explorer.

The doc viewer pane uses the Flash-based interface like the iFrame above for all .PDF docs. And, the conversion script will render the output in HTML according to the doc type (.doc, .xls, .rtf) using the tools listed above. I’ve even added support for Mind Manager mindmaps using my web-based mindmap viewer to do conversions into Freemind flash on the fly.

Overall, I’m happy with the end result. I’ve setup a customized version of the document browser to run on my personal web server at home. I can now successfully view my documents from my Laptop while I’m on the road, and I’ve been able to embed documents directly in my wiki so I don’t have to spend time hunting for the right doc.

Other Interesting Links

• Open source flash viewers -

FlexPaper and SWF Viewer/zViewer

• PSView (Online viewer for PDF, Postscript, Word) – http://view.samurajdata.se/
• Vuzit (Online document viewer) and API – http://vuzit.com/

Update: Sample code has been posted here http://eric-blue.com/2010/02/12/example-document-browser-code/

“Flash plugin or Javascript are turned off. Activate both and reload to view the mindmap”

Since it was working on my Mac (in hindsight running Flash 9), I decided to investigate further.

The viewer fundamentally relies on FreeMind to render the mind maps, and supports the Flash and Java plugins.  It turns out that the original version of the FreeMind Flash viewer I downloaded back on Oct. 2007 had issues correctly detecting the version of Flash if version 10 was installed.

Although this wasn’t a direct problem with the flash viewer itself, there was an issue with the copy of flashobject.js.  FlashObject, which was the precursor to the new SWFObject, helps abstract some of the difficulty of embedding flash content, and messaging the user to download the current flash version if it’s not currently enabled in their browser.  Unfortunately, the version of FlashObject that the FreeMind viewer used was 1.1.1 from 5/17/2005.  After careful inspection of the current FreeMind wiki viewed source of a map that was working and noticed that their version of flashobject.js (although listed as 1.1.1) had 2 additional lines added to the getFlashVersion() function:

var aux= y.charAt(y.indexOf(‘.’)-2);
if(“0123456789″.indexOf(aux)!=-1) flashversion=aux+flashversion;

Unfortunately, the method that flashobject used to determine that version had incorrectly parsed the version string (e.g. “Shockwave Flash 10.0 r12) using this logic:  flashversion = y.charAt(y.indexOf(‘.’)-1) and misidentifed the version as 0!  The 2 additional lines above correct the problem above.

I revisited the Freemind Flash viewer website, and download the latest version to see if this new code was there as well.  Although the version was still listed as 1.0b, it appears that the flash version “hack/fix” was put in place on 10/17/08.  I’m glad the problem was fixed, and mystery solved, but there a couple developer lessons to be learned here:

1) Document Document Document.  Although flashobject.js is now deprecated, the fixed version should have been put in version control.  And, the README and version number of freeMindFlashBrowser.zip should have been updated to reflect the change and correct support for Flash 10.  Oddly enough, I could find no mention of these changes on the FreeMind wiki or the discussion forum on Sourceforge.

2) Upgrade 3rd party libraries.  I’m sure FlashObject was getting the job done, but unforuntately broke when Flash 10 was released.  Since it’s an unsupported/deprecated project it required some developer to hack in those 2 lines of code.  It’s unclear if it was the original Flash viewer developer, or somebody from FreeMind.  It would probably be worthwhile to replace FlashObject with the newer (and supported) version of SWFObject 2.  After doing some Googling, it seems developers on other project have experienced a similar problem with FlashObject and are opting to upgrade.

One thing I don’t quite get is the idea that you should *never* write a functional spec.
From the 37 Signals blog post (Feb 2005):

Step 1: Don’t write a functional specifications document
Don’t write a functional specifications document. Why? Well, there’s nothing functional about a functional specifications document.

Functional specifications documents lead to an illusion of agreement. A bunch of people agreeing on paragraphs of text is not real agreement. Everyone is reading the same thing, but they’re often thinking something different. This inevitably comes out in the future when it’s too late. “Wait, that’s not what I had in mind…” “Huh? That’s not how we described it.” “Yes it was and we all agreed on it — you even signed off on it.” You know the drill.

Functional specifications document are “yes documents.” They’re political. They’re all about getting to “yes” and we think the goal up front should be getting to “no.” Functional specs lead to scope creep from the very start. There’s very little cost in saying “yeah, ok, let’s add that” to a Word document.

While I do agree that the point is to build functional software, not perfect specs. There are a great number of situations where the type of product you are building, the size of the team, or the type of organization demands a more structured (and documented) approach to building software. One particular comment on this post caught my eye, and I have to say it summarizes my feeling on this whole debate… to spec, or not to spec? That is the question.

Comment from One of several steves:

I’m highly suspicious of absolutist statements when it comes to software design and development. Always write a functional spec. Never write a functional spec. Both are equally dogmatic and equally full of pitfalls.

A “story” is never going to give developers enough to go on if you’re building a web-based app that has to interface with a multitude of exterior systems, legacy databases, etc. Interface design isn’t going to help them much, either. Good database diagrams would. Good technical requirements document would. But the “story” and the wireframes and comps aren’t going to help them much. And, like it or not, sometimes we do have to make the interface accomodate what’s going on in the backend, or else spend a ridiculous amount of money to get legacy technology to behave the ideal way, instead of a reasonable amount of money to get it behave in an acceptable way.

The key takeway is to have the right criteria drive the design and development, and use whatever tools needed to best communicate that. Call them whatever works (as Geoff correctly points out, a BRD by any other name still smells as sweet).

Flexibility and using the available tools to get the job done effectively is paramount. Dogmatic approaches get in the way. “Don’t write a functional specifications document” is frankly just as stupid as “Always write a functional spec.” Sometimes it makes sense not to; sometimes it doesn’t. Dogmatic rules don’t encourage that kind of flexibility.

Here’s a summary of the last few sessions I attended:

Developing Rich Domain Models

Chris Richardson, consultant and author of the book Pojos in Action, discussed how to implement a domain model using POJOs (Plain Old Java Objects). I read Chris’ book late last year and overall was very satisified with it. In fact, I would highly recommend this book to anybody who wants to get an intro to peristence (Hibernate, JDO, Ibatis), Spring, and find out how to model their presentation and business tiers. Definitely fantastic! The session today covered many of the topcs from the book, and it was good to have this knowledge reinforced.

Benefits of the Build: A Case Study in Continuous Integration

Kirk Knoernschild, gave a great intro talk on the benefits of implementing continous integration. Here’s some more info:

Agile processes such as XP and RUP advocate continuous integration, where shorter iterations produce an incremental and functional growth of the system. The fundamental component of any continuous integration (CI) strategy is an automated and repeatable build. In addition to ensuring your application is always in a functional state, a robust build strategy enables a number of other important lifecycle activities.

War Stories: Fighter Jets and Agile Development at Lockheed Martin

Michael Zwicker, an Agile architect at Lockhead Martin gave a fantastic talk on how Agile methodologies were implemented at his company. This gives a shot in the arm to anybody who is hesistant about trying to go Agile. If it can work at Lockhead, a traditionally waterfall-heavy company, it can work in yours to. Other topics included key value expected and realized, barriers to initially implementing agile and how they were overcome, barriers to further agile adoption, and the value of training and agile tooling.

Michael also recommend an Agile tool that managed the project backlog: VersionOne

Highlights of the day

* After lunch I decided to walk outside for a little bit. I discovered a trail right beside the conference center called the San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail, and had a relaxing 45 minute walk.

* I discovered that the Hyatt right beside the convention center has a “Virtual Concierge” (I’m not kidding). Check out the link.

Transitioning to Agile: A Guide to Good Practices in Context

Michael Cohn, from Mountain Goat Software, gave an excellent presentation on how to introduce an agile process into a company. Michael dispensed some great tips on building teams, picking the right project for making the transition, and dealing with resistance. You can download the presentation and a related PDF on his website:

Transitioning to Agile: A Guide to Good Practices in Context

Introducing An Agile Process to an Organization

One particualr topic that Michael discussed really got my attention. While dealing with resistance and change, there is a popular model that can be used: CDE (Container, Differences, Transforming Exchanges). From the seminar

Self organization (CDE Model)
Container
A boundary within which self-organization occurs (company, project, team, city)
Differences
There must be differences among the “agent” acting in our system
Technical knowledge, domain knowledge, education, experience, power, gender
Transforming Exchanges
Agents in the system interact and exchange resources
Information, money, energy (vision)

I’m fascinated with the topic of change and system models, so I dug a little deeper and found some references to a new field called HSD (Human System Dynamics). The Human System Dynamics FAQ says:

Human systems dynamics (HSD) is an emerging field of research and practice that applies principles of complexity, nonlinear dynamics, and chaos theory to the study of groups of humans as they live and work responsibly in teams, organizations, and communities.

Google turned up a related paper on HSD and CDE titled: After the Dance with Whole-Scale Change(WSC) PDF. I plan on researching this further.

Scrum: A Five Letter Word Geeks to Need Learn

Michael Vizdos, a certified Scum trainer, gave an informative overview of Scrum. Prior to the session I had only briefly heard about Scrum, and by the end of the talk I felt that I had taken away quite a bit to think about. According to Wikipedia, Scrum is:

“… intended (for) use is for management of software development projects, and it has been successfully used to “wrap” Extreme Programming and other development methodologies. However, it can theoretically be applied to any context where a group of people need to work together to achieve a common goal – such as setting up a small school, scientific research projects or planning a wedding.”

When asked how Scrum differs from other Agile methodologies like XP, Lean, Crystal and others, here was the explanation:

- Scrum is more of a project management methodology, not software development. Scrum does not dictate how software is constructed.

- Scrum is a great into methodology. Once roles are defined and teams are built, many companies pickup some other methodologies (like Crystal Clear)

- Scrum is also used in other domains (sales, marketing, and program management)

There is also a more detailed process flow for Scrum in the Scrum (development) article on Wikipedia. Here are the highlights from that article:

“Scrum assumes that the software development process is complicated and unpredictable and treats it as a controlled black box instead of a theoretical, fully defined process. This is one of the biggest differences between Scrum and the Waterfall and Spiral methodologies, which view the software development process as a fully defined process. Most problems encountered when using these older, formal types of methodologies are :

* Requirements are not fully understood at the beginning of the process.
* Requirements change during the process.
* The process becomes unpredictable when new tools and technologies are used.

Another characteristic of Scrum is that the software development process isn’t treated as a linear process, unlike the Waterfall, Spiral and Iterative methodologies. In a lot of cases this linear process consists of the following four activities: Analysis, Design, Implementation and Testing. Scrum, however, doesn’t prescribe a sequence in which the activities must be implemented. A project can start with any activity, and can change between activities at any time. ”

Core Models and Patterns of Web 2.0 – What They Mean to Architects

The final highlight of the day was the informal “Birds of a Feather” gathering at the end of the day by the poolside at the Hyatt. James Ward, Flex evangelist for Adobe, lead a discussion with a group of about 15 people focusing on patterns and trends of the Web 2.0 phenonemon. Discussions focused on security, identity, trust, multi-platform architectures (ESB, MVC, RIA). Overall, it was a great chit-chat and lots of fun.

Overall, the day turned out to be fun and very informative! The SDExpo conference focuses on many areas of the software development sector: Java/C++/.Net, Web 2.0, process and people management, the business of software, testing, development methodologies, architecture and everything in between.

My main focus for this conference is on People, Process & Methods. But, I did attend some more techy presentation and picked up some great information. Here are some of the more interesting things I learned:

Combining Flex and Ajax to Overcome Browser Limitations

James Ward, a technical evangelist from Adobe Systems, gave an informative and compelling talk on the benefits of mixing Flex (Flash) and Ajax. I haven’t dug into Flex as of yet, but did learn a bit about it from this article a couple months ago:

How and Why AJAX, Not Java, Became the Favored Technology for RIAs
http://ajaxworldmagazine.com/read/333329.htm

Here is a description of Flex from this article:

“Flex is a way to develop Flash applications by programming. It includes a declarative XML language called MXML for laying out user interfaces, and a programming language called ActionScript, which is a superset of ECMAScript (that is, standardized JavaScript), with extra features like optional static type checking……. Flex applications compile directly into SWFs (Flash binaries), which are then Just-In-Time (JIT) compiled by the Flash runtime, for extra speed.”

James demonstrated quite a few visually impressive “Web 2.0″/RIA (Rich Internet Applications) that showcase what the next generation of web applications are starting to look like. Gone are the days of boring static HTML pages, tons of page reloading, and user boredom. Technologies like Flash, Flex, and Ajax are beginning to make web applications like like traditional desktop programs (and better in many cases).

Two particular things that interested me where the announcement of Adobe’s Apollo desktop engine, which allows web developers to create rich web applications and run them on the desktop (Windows and Mac, and Linux is forthcoming). And, an interesting benchmark application, that illustrates the different technologies that are used to transmit information between client and server. XML, SOAP, JSON, and a new binary protocol from Flash that appears to be significantly faster than the rest.

Crystal Clear: A Human Powered Methodology for Small Teams

Alistair Cockburn (Pronounced Co-Burn, the Scottish way) gave a great lecture on the Crystal family of development methodologies. I’ve just started my journey looking into Agile development (XP, Agile, Lean, Scrum, Crystal) and I have to say that the Crystal approach looks very promising. Per Wikipedia:

Crystal Clear is a member of the Crystal family of methodologies as described by Alistair Cockburn and is considered an example of an agile or lightweight methodology.

Crystal Clear can be applied to teams of up to 6 or 8 colocated developers working on systems that are not life-critical. The Crystal family of methodologies focus on efficiency and habitablity as components of project safety.

Crystal Clear focuses on people, not processes or artifacts.

Crystal Clear contains the following properties (the first three are required):

* Frequent Delivery of Usable Code to Users (required)
* Reflective Improvement (required)
* Osmotic Communication Preferably by Being Co-Located (required)
* Personal Safety
* Focus
* Easy Access to Expert Users
* Automated Tests, Configuration Management, and Frequent Integration

Key Note: Why Software Sucks

David Platt gave an enjoyable, comedic, and sobering lecture on the topic of his book of the same name:

Why Software Sucks…. and what you can do about it

From David’s website, here is an overview:

A Book for Anyone Who Uses a Computer Today … and Just Wants to Scream!

Today’s software sucks. There’s no other good way to say it. It’s unsafe, allowing criminal programs to creep through the Internet wires into our very bedrooms. It’s unreliable, crashing when we need it most, wiping out hours or days of work with no way to get it back. And it’s hard to use, requiring large amounts of head-banging to figure out the simplest operations.

It’s no secret that software sucks. You know that from personal experience, whether you use computers for work or for personal tasks. In this book, programming insider David Platt explains why that’s the case and, more importantly, why it doesn’t have to be that way. And he explains it in plain, jargon-free English that’s a joy to read, using real-world examples with which you’re already familiar. In the end, he suggests what you, as a typical user, without a technical background, can do about this sad state of our software—how you, as an informed consumer, don’t have to take the abuse that bad software dishes out.

I began using mind maps (courtesy of Mindjet’s MindManager Pro) to help streamline the process of researching new technologies and products. I discovered that this technique was much more efficient than trying to use traditional bookmarks (or del.icio.us for that matter), or knowledge managers (like General Knowledge Base or DevonThink). And, I could quickly share with others, without needing to create a separate document to summarize my findings.

Over time I increased my usage of mind maps to encompass capturing meeting notes, product requirements, and technical design discussions. Although I wouldn’t typically use mind mapping techniques during any whiteboard sessions, I would capture meeting notes afterwards and convert to a mind map. When sharing maps with others, I would upload to our intranet in both MindManager format and export as HTML for people who hadn’t yet downloaded the mind map viewer.

As a whole, I would say the feedback and general acceptance of using mind maps for our projects has been very positive. On numerous occasions, team members would still be consulting the maps even months after a meeting had taken place. And, I personally think that reviewing the mind maps after a tradional meeting/whiteboard session can really improve communication and recall of the information later on.

I became curious as to how other individuals and organizations are using mind maps in their development process. After reading Chuck Frey’s excellent Mind Mapping Survey, I discovered that a large percentage of the survey respondents (500 people in total) are using mind mapping for project planning (52%) and business process mapping (30%). And, of the people that listed their mind map use as “other” (9%), there was mention of documenting software requirements, and software development and modeling.

I decided to start Googling on this topic and came up with some interesting results. The following are some links and resources related to the use of mind maps in various phases of the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle).

Investigation/Feasibility/Planning

Mind-mapping tools are finding a home in corporate IT
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=112247

Using mind mapping software for web research
http://mindmapping.typepad.com/the_mind_mapping_software/2006/10/using_mind_mapp.html

Turning systems models into projects
(Related to ORM – Outcome Relationship Model)
http://duffill.blogs.com/beyond_crayons/2006/07/turning_systems.html

Funnel timeline: A visual approach to project planning
http://mindmapping.typepad.com/the_mind_mapping_software/2006/12/funnel_timeline.html

Project estimating – Mindmaps are a tool in the armory
http://www.mind-mapping.org/mindmapping-for-project-management/project-estimating-with-mindmaps.html

How to use mind mapping software for project management
http://www.innovationtools.com/Articles/ArticleDetails.asp?a=148

Mind Mapping and Project Management
http://www.mindmappingstrategies.com/project-management.aspx

Mind maps provide a view for collaboration
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=112247

Analysis

Agile Modeling with Mind Map and UML (StickyMinds Article)
http://www.stickyminds.com/testandevaluation.asp?Function=edetail&ObjectId=11861&ObjectType=ART

Utilizing Mind Maps for Essential Use Case Specification
PPT (PowerPoint)
HTML

MindManager for Software Development: Part 2 – Requirements Gathering
http://mindjetlabs.com/cs/blogs/synergist/archive/2006/11/07/MindManager-for-Software-Development_3A00_-Part-2-_2D00_-Requirements-Gathering.aspx

Design

Sharp Development – Mind Mapping for OOAD (Object-Oriented Analysis and Design)
http://www.sharpdevelopment.com/MindMapping/MindMappingForOOAD/MindMappingForOOAD.htm

Agile Modeling with Mind Map and UML
PDF
HTML

UML Modeling Tool – JUDE
(Convert Mind Maps to UML)
http://jude.change-vision.com/jude-web/product/professional.html#mindmap_convert

Coding

Generative Programming with MindManager and XSLT
http://blog.mindjet.com/2005/12/generative-programming-with-mindmanager-and-xslt

Testing

Mind Maps Foster Thorough Test Design
http://www.infoq.com/news/2006/11/test-design-mind-map
Original Article

Mind Mapping for Test Planning
http://www.sharpdevelopment.com/MindMapping/MindMappingForTestPlanning/MindMappingForTestPlanning.htm

Implementation/Integration

MindManager for Software Development: Part 1 – Help Authoring
http://mindjetlabs.com/cs/blogs/synergist/archive/2006/10/07/MindManager-for-Software-Development_3A00_-Part-1-_2D00_-Help-Authoring.aspx

In the near future, as mind mapping becomes more mainstream, I can imagine that various mind mapping techniques and products will be used to streamline the software development process. Personally, I think it would be a great use of time to come up with a set of common mind map templates for use in software development projects. Something along the lines of ReadySet, or Steve McConnell’s Software Project Survival Guide templates. This sounds like a great pet project for 2007.

In the meantime, I’d be interested in hearing any feedback on how individuals or organizations are currently using mind maps in their development process.