Anticlue

Affinity Diagram

The affinity diagram is a visual tool that is utilized to identify patterns and relationships in large amounts of information. It is especially useful when the purpose of an activity is to gather and organize a large amount of ideas as in brainstorming. The exercise of creating an affinity diagram encourages the team to think intuitively, have a sense of ownership of the results, and summarize the information concisely. It is a cool tool to use for organizing verbally expressed ideas.

So how do you create an affinity diagram?

1. Brainstorm - Team members verbalize every possible idea and requirement a customer might have. One team member writes each idea on an individual card or sticky note and places it on a large, flat surface.
2. Grouping - Team members work in silence, grouping notes with similar themes into no more than seven clusters. Notes may be moved from one cluster to another, and duplicates may be created to use in more than one cluster. Notes may be moved around at will.
3. Titling - Team members examine each cluster of notes and title them according to the theme each cluster represents. Each title should be written on a note and positioned above each cluster. Team members can talk during this step.

When performed in order, the three steps for creating an affinity diagram help Six Sigma teams see patterns in large amounts of information. The affinity diagram is a great tool to use in exploring customer requirements.