For some of us, planning projects and the meetings that go with them is a chore. Mindjet's Mindmanager X5 Pro is designed to provide a visual tool for brainstorming and planning; the creators claim it can eliminate two out of three meetings.

Essentially, this program is a way of creating a chart relating to a project. In brainstorming mode, you can type in various tasks and assign them to individuals, then drag them onto the project chart. The charts are read clockwise, showing the different elements of a project, with sub-tasks. You can also create projects directly, although we found some niggles in the interface. Double-clicking selects one word of a title but there's no way to select the whole thing to change. And pressing the Insert key sometimes adds a sub-task at the present level rather than the next one down.

You can have floating tasks that might be related to but not part of the main project. To-do information can be synched with Outlook, although on our test PC, it only worked if Outlook was already running. You can also export to Microsoft Project and Powerpoint; there's a built-in presentation mode too, which moves you round the chart, helping to review it.

So you can use Mindmanager to brainstorm, present, and schedule, and the learning curve is less steep than you might expect if you've not used this sort of program before. There are a couple of interface niggles but, on the whole, even the disorganised should be able to plan a project using this tool.

Contact: Mindjet 01604 638 666
www.mindjet.com/uk

System requirements:

• Windows NT 4SP6, 2000, or XP
• Pentium 233MHz
• 128MB of Ram
• 150MB disk space
• Office 2000/XP
• SuperVGA display