Miro vs. Powernoodle

MIRO is ideal as a one-stop shop for visual diagramming. It has many uses in leading remote workshop facilitation without compromising on its beauty. It plays fairly well with others, especially if you go with the more expensive plan if you need to import and export things. I've used VISIO, lucidchart, and iGraphx extensively, and every moment I have to use those, I wish I was using MIRO.

Incentivized

Well Suited:

• Groups needing to make a decision
• Democratically based decision making
• Sensitive topics
• Discussions Groups needing input

• Exceptional templates help me get started quickly with almost any type of whiteboarding, creating consistency where needed and extreme variety when also needed.
• Having multiple active users on the same board happens so smoothly. It's easy to get people on the board and updating objects simultaneously without weird conflicts is amazing.
• The amount of objects & tools Miro provides allows us to create very specific and detailed artifacts.

Incentivized

• Powernoodle has ignited deeper, more candid conversations among our team leaders. We've been able to see through these discussions that we haven't always told our story in the most compelling manner, and that we need to be clearer, more concise and less wordy. Since Powernoodle limits your contributions to a certain number of characters, it forces you to think hard about what you really want to say. This feature was particularly powerful for our organization, which has tended to verbosity.
• Powernoodle allowed us to vet old and new ideas in a safe space, minimizing biases and groupthink. In many organizations there are some who speak more than others, and often their ideas get more attention. What Powernoodle does brilliantly is it allows, actually requires, each participant to write what they wish anonymously and without interruption. Each participant is equal in the sense that all input into Powernoodle is brief (limited number of characters) and the anonymity definitely prevents the usual bias toward those who speak the most.
• Powernoodle increased critical thinking about our organization and forced us to re-examine why and how we do what we do. With Powernoodle, we were able to look at everyone's ideas, comment on them, decide if some should be merged, and ultimately vote on them. The Powernoodle process forced us to be clear, which meant we each needed to think critically about what has worked and what hasn't worked for us, and how we move forward with what has worked and with new ideas.

• The music is terrible (I never use it, and the feature is sorta broken)
• Advanced ways of creating shapes would be nice
• Rasier access to the ai tools would be lovely
• Distributing objects that have joins (arrows) is not as easy as it could be

Incentivized

• It's not mobile friendly yet, but other than that no complaints!

There is no other tool like Miro for process Mapping in particular. I've tried PowerPoint, Word, and other programs, but when collaborating virtually on how to improve a process, Miro has all of the tools and more to enable successful mapping. The colors, different types of shapes and text books, along with the ability to integrate different documents and other functionality, make it ideal for this purpose. In a virtual world, it's a must-have.

Incentivized

It's pretty easy to use. My gripes are with some small idiosyncrasies with selection behavior with objects and editing text. When I move an object, it automatically de-selects it when I am not done with it. I have to click to select again. Text control is challenging and could be improved. It could use a little more styling capability. It's also weird that it behaves differently in a shape then when using the text tool.

Incentivized

I only give a 9/10 because of the speed at which it loads. I have never experienced issues with Miro logging me out early, or some other technical issue causing the program to crash, or even it just loading in perpetuity without ever actually coming up (unlike other programs such as SFDC). It take a minute for all of my boards to come up after I click on it in my favorites, but besides that, it's all good.

Incentivized

I took the loading quickly to be related to availability which I commented on before, so ditto with those comment on load time here. Although to reemphasize, Miro doesn't crash or just refuse to load like some other programs. The weak point of Miro for me is integration of files like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint (especially the later two). When you embed these, it gets slow, and complicated to bring them up while you're in the application.

Incentivized

The support staff at Miro are fantastic. Whenever I have had an issue, they have been timely and helpful with their response. They are also very knowledgeable and go out of their way to not only help, but offer proactive training sessions on different topics and new functionality so everyone can try it out.

Incentivized

There was a series of webinars which Miro hosted with our organization that went over the basics, then progressively became more advanced with additional sections. The instructors were knowledgeable, and provided examples throughout the sessions, as well as answered peoples' questions. There was ample time and experience on the calls to cover a range of topics. The instructors were also very friendly and sociable, as well as honest. Of course Miro isn't a "God-tool" that does absolutely everything, but the instructors were aware and emphasized the strengths where Miro had them and sincerely accepted feedback.

Incentivized

The Miro team was very collaborative and helpful; I loved that they used the tool to help us implement Miro! With Miro being so easy to use, I love that the implementation team was very flexible with us, assessed where we were with our understanding of the tool, and then adjusted the type of support they provided accordingly.

Incentivized

In many cases the other tools did a single thing better than Miro but overall Miro better solved all our needs. In some cases, like FigJam the hurdle was licensing. Teams just doesn't have an awesome set of features. MindMap is good for what it is but not so good for other uses. Mural is excellent...just not as good.

Incentivized

Miro is great for scaling. In every department and subdivision across my entire organization, there is someone using it. From Sales to marketing, to manufacturing and operations; and even in legal and finance, there isn't a process or a department that is not using Miro, and if they aren't, they're missing out! Even at the highest to the lowest levels of the organization, it is essential for virtual collaboration.

Incentivized

• We're able to collaborate remotely as if we had a big wall with a lot of sticky notes, avoiding costly travel to offsite locations. ($350 per day)
• Meetings flow more efficiently when we use the timer, helping us to stick to the meeting agenda and avoiding distractions.
• We can save our work and return to it, without having to refer to a picture of a whiteboard that is hard to read. This saves us from confusion and helps to keep collaboration going.

Incentivized

• While we are still in the beginning stages of taking action on the decisions we made using the Powernoodle process, I have no doubt that there will be a very positive ROI on our overall objectives.