How to Use Affinity Diagrams for Productivity

If you’re looking to improve collaboration and increase productivity in your workplace, using affinity diagrams can be helpful. All that’s required is some simple stationery, brainstorming and teamwork. Follow our step-by-step guide for using affinity diagrams to boost your team’s productivity.

What Is an Affinity Diagram?

An affinity diagram is a tool that’s used to group data and organise ideas. The term was created in the 1960s by a Japanese ethnographer named Jiro Kawakita, which is why this technique is also known as the KJ Method in his honour. Affinity diagrams are useful when you’re working on a complicated problem, analysing and organising data, or trying to brainstorm ideas with a group. By grouping ideas that are alike, you’ll create a mind map that’s easy to read and understand. Affinity diagrams can also help you reach group consensus quickly.

How Can Affinity Diagrams Increase Your Productivity?

Affinity diagrams can help to provide clarity on projects and save time, too.

If you’re overwhelmed with lots of ideas or information and don’t know where to begin on a project, an affinity diagram can help. This method provides clarity and structure and leads to actionable pathways. When you’re working with a group, time is often wasted in endless meetings, going back and forth on who thinks what and where responsibility lies. It’s much more efficient to create an affinity diagram together with time set aside for brainstorming, categorising, discussion and voting on ideas. This ensures you’re all on the same page and allows you to prioritise and delegate tasks with ease. A good amount of time to consider setting aside for an affinity diagram session is around 30-45 minutes.

Before You Get Started

To create an affinity diagram you’ll need the following equipment: pens or markers, sticky notes or index cards, dot stickers and a place to display your diagram, such as a blank wall or a large whiteboard. Gather your team in a meeting room or other open space and choose someone to be the facilitator who leads the discussion. Now you’re ready to begin.

What To Try

The Process of Creating an Affinity Diagram

Affinity diagrams are a great tool to help encourage teamwork, communication and collaboration in an office environment.

Step 1: Identify the Central Question

What are you hoping to achieve through the use of affinity diagrams? Is there a question you want answered or a problem you hope to solve? Kick things off by announcing your intended aims.

Step 2: Brainstorming

Everyone writes down their ideas – one idea per sticky note or index card. This step works best if it’s done quietly, without communication between team members to ensure no one is influenced by anyone else. The aim here is to generate genuine ideas without limits or judgements. It’s important to note that if you’re using your affinity diagram to organise data, ensure that everyone has read up on the data prior to the meeting. Ask team members to record individual data points on separate sticky notes.

Step 3: Sharing

Take it in turns to present your ideas or data points to the rest of the team while posting your sticky notes onto the wall/whiteboard. At this step, you can eliminate any duplicate responses. It’s totally fine if the sharing process sparks new ideas – simply add these to the wall.

Step 4: Categorising

Working together, try to group similar ideas or concepts. You can have as many groups as needed, however it’s probably best to stick to 12 or fewer groups, so that the number of concepts are manageable. Collaboratively come up with a label or heading for each group that sums up what it’s about. Write these headings on sticky notes and attach them to the wall.

Step 5: Voting

Each team member votes for the three groups they think are most important in relation to the central question you established in Step 1. A clever way to do this is by using dot stickers – each team member is given three dot stickers to place on the wall. Groups can be ranked according to how many stickers they receive. This indicates what the team thinks are the most important priorities.

Step 6: Discussing

In this phase, team members discuss their findings. Can any groups be merged together for greater efficiency? Is everyone satisfied with the rankings established in step five? The facilitator then helps craft a summary statement, presenting final conclusions and what steps might need to be taken next.

Putting your Affinity Diagram to Work

Now that you have completed the affinity diagram process, you can tackle your team’s next big project with a clearer objective and a focused and manageable list of priorities to be tackled to achieve that objective.