Affinity Diagram

What is an Affinity Diagram

Ideas/ thoughts can be generated by brainstorming - this serves as the next step - to organize and summarize natural groupings among them to understand the problem and come up with innovative solutions. So it is a complete technique to brainstorm and distill ideas

When to use an Affinity Diagram

To organize and group a lot of ideas
Increases participation from team - and ownership
if stuck with too many options and enable to reach consensus
Helps idea merging for a better idea

How to make an Affinity Diagram

Logistics are similar to brainstorming
Write the problem phrase on the board
Follow brainstorming guidelines
Write at least 20 ideas on large post-its based on brainstorming
Use capital letters and stay within the word limit of 4 to 7 words
Now - in silence group should sort them onto related groupings
they can move each other's placement
if required create a duplicate one
when sorting slows down, group may be near a consensus
some ideas may not have a group -- it's OK
Now, for each grouping - a header card should be produced
Use consensus derived headings
Subheaders may also be created
Now, draw up the final one - check for consensus

Variations

Instead of noun or verbs - diagrams can be used
If you were to also draw any connectors or relationships between post-its - it could become an interrelationship diagram - will help you relate to connected ideas

Example of an Affinity Diagram

EasyProblemSolving