Nowadays information flow overload is typical for our daily life. Search for a tool to visualize complex information and big data has led to the emergence of new areas of research related to visualization (infographics, cognitive graphics, virtual reality, computer graphics, etc.) The main aim of these new types of graphical presentations of information is to compress and to simplify the information. From the well-known practically used types of diagrams, mind maps were selected as the most common, convenient, and simple method for the proper representation and design of professional knowledge, business ideas, projects, functions, or any other complex conceptual structures. Mind maps reflect hierarchical relationships among the concepts associated with the central key concept and radially presented around it; and allow the analyst to reflect in details the features and patterns of the domain with their specific relationships. The paper describes a classification of main errors and mistakes of mind-mapping analysts. There is a vast amount of research about the effectiveness of mind mapping as a learning tool. On the one hand, mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, on the other hand, to facilitate (accelerate) research, group projects, and case studies, problem solving, “brainstorming” or decision-making, as well as in various documents development. The analysis summarizes 10 years of pedagogical and practical experience of the authors in the development of business models based on mind maps. The paper is focused on the new typology of the main mistakes in mind-mapping, based on the analysis of more than 750 mind maps of both senior students of St. Petersburg State University and students of Executive MBA programs. Errors revealed include significant errors in development, in particular, semantic errors, including errors of understanding and fragmentation. In general, errors analysed in the paper are caused by lack of skills in systemic and structural analysis in terms of concepts categorization and generalization.
