An Affinity Diagram (sometimes called the KJ Method for Kawakita Jiro) is a visual tool used for organizing and categorizing ideas, information, or data that may seem unrelated or unstructured.
It’s often used in brainstorming sessions or problem-solving discussions to help a group of people make sense of a large amount of information and identify common themes or patterns.
This is a group activity.
This technique is ofter referred to as the “Yellow Sticky Exercise, ” although the use of multiple colors is advised, typically one color per participant.
YELLOW STICKIES
Agree on your objective-define a problem, solve a problem, make sense of seemingly disparate data?
2. Define your scope-what are the boundaries of the exercise?An organization, a geography, a process?
3. Write your thoughts on a sticky note and place on a convenient surface (white boards are probably the best).
4. Identify duplicates and merge them (as all of the people who placed the sticky notes are present this is easier than you may think).
CLUMPING
5. Clump the sticky notes into groupings that make sense. Give each clump a label or title. If a sticky note does not seem to fit into a clump, put it to one one side for the time being.
6. Stand back and look at the resulting clumps and review if they need adjustment. This is a good time to try and merge in the sticky notes that did not fit in the first clumping exercise.
TIPS
Stick duplicates on top of each other-the number of duplicates may be indicative of the severity or importance of an item.
If you still have sticky notes that do not fit into a clump, you may have a new clump.