Project tracking tools for thematic map navigation?

Question

I'm having problems with project management, and I'm looking for a good tool that will be a good help for my brain (very associative). I need a bug tracker, but I can group tasks by topics and link topics to each other in a graph (see Wikipedia Entry Map Theme ) so that I can easily find and visualize the “big picture”. I tried using AbstractSpoon ToDoList , and it works well, but it is hierarchical, and after about 30 or 40 entries I get lost in the maze of things to do.

any suggestions?

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edit: Now I tried Freemind , Conzilla , XMind, and VUE . Freimind and Conzilla were a little flaky. XMind seems the most polished of four; they have a “pro” version, which is not free (monthly payment> :( which is strange), but a free open source version. You cannot export data directly from a program with a free version, but the storage format is just a file. a jar type (zip file with the extension .xmind) that contains "contents.xml" which is easily parsed if I need to.

@codeslave:

but how important is visual representation in any way

Visualization is everything! I have an information overload, and I need to be able to navigate the mess of information. I don’t want it to be super-Powerpoint-polished, but I need to be able to use the associations I created to remind myself how to find what I'm looking for. In an ideal world, you can just search full-text for everything, but that only works if you can remember the search phrase. Often I will write something under the "algorithm", and when I go look for it, I look under the "programming" instead, or vice versa. Associativity solves this problem by allowing me to visually view my “mental model” of information that I have saved.

Answer 1

You can always get CVS export from your “favorite” tool and create map maps for topics that you can view using the Omnigator or xSiteable tool. I used to have several XSLT files for working with JIRA data. If interest is high enough, maybe reassembly is required?

Answer 2

I developed a small utility that will import MindMaps into project plans . Let me know if something like this is useful, and I will develop it further.

Now I just use it unilaterally from MindMap -> Project File. I usually use this to brainstorm and manage the area, and then export to the project when we like the scope of what we are working with for more formal project management.

Answer 3

How about using the old old FogBugz? You can easily associate cases. You won’t get a nice graph of a spatial / smart topic map (the idea of ​​a Joel object), but how important is the visual representation in any way.