Mind mapping is a great way to add structure to brainstorming sessions and visualize your ideas. Check out the applications your fellow readers use to do their best brainstorming.
An oldie-but-goodie post from entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki directly addresses the kind of problems the military has with complex PowerPoint decks-boring read-throughs stuffed with too much on-screen text. His parameters for preventing audience paralysis is dubbed the 10/20/30 rule.
Online office suite Zoho enters the project management realm with a few attention-getting features. One is import support for Microsoft Project files, and another is a consolidate, real-time view of what's going on with, and between, project members.