Once all the elements, agents, actors, nodes, components (whatever you want to call the parts you place on the page) are mined, the key part is drawing the connections and relationships between them. This is where you can start to tease out all the non-obvious parts and seek to develop a more complex view of the system you are exploring.

In a cluster map, we throw a topic, question, or arena down in the middle of a page, and then free associate nodes (elements within the system). There are no wrong or right words or ideas here, as everything is interconnected. We quickly move from one part to another, diving into an exploration of the elements that make up a system along with all... See more