Affinity Technique

Silence makes the Affinity diagram a very
Affinity Technique
"democratic" process, i.e., less likely to
suffer from lack of participation due to the
What is it?
"rank" of those participating, or the
A method for generating and/or organizing verbal data.
presence of a dominant team member.
Affinity means "likeness", so this approach is used to

group ideas into clusters or categories based upon their
affinity for one another. Typical uses include:
How do I use the Affinity Technique to generate and
organize information about a problem or issue?
♦ Generating and organizing ideas about issues
Identify the issue or problem for which ideas are
related to a problem situation.
needed. One advantage of this method is you don't
need to spend much time exploring it as a group.
♦ As the input for a Relationship Diagram, to build a
non-linear representation of the factors influencing
Write an ISSUE question in the form:
an issue or problem.
"What are al the factors related to X?” or
♦ Organizing customer needs information gathered
“What are al the ways we could Y?”
during interviews or observation, or comment data
from customer surveys.

Clarify roles and ground rules. Identify the team's

POINTER: See Customer Comment
Sponsor, i.e., the person with the issue to be
Analysis in Chapter 7: Making Data, for a
addressed by the team. Select participants based upon
method to analyze interview data. See
their expertise, diversity and wil ingness to think
Chapter 6 for more on Relationship
flexibly. For Ground rules, see page 199.
Diagrams.


On sticky notes, individuals SILENTLY brainstorm

answers to the ISSUE question. Al ow 10-15 minutes

HINT: A key advantage of the Affinity
and fol ow these guidelines.
Technique over Classic Brainstorming is

that the generation and grouping of ideas is

Write legibly
One idea per note
done SILENTLY.

No talking
4-7 words per idea

Making Better Joe Kilbride, Kilbride Consulting, Inc.
Excerpt from Chapter 4: Making Ideas

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Place stickys on the chart and spend 5-10 minutes
SILENTLY forming affinity groups of similar ideas.
Create 5-10 groups adjacent to boxes A-J.


HINT: While grouping the notes, if a sticky is
moved more than twice, copy and place it in
both groups.

Discuss and write labels that capture the essence of
each cluster. Labels need not be perfect, but should be
at least two words each. (5 minutes).

Determine your next steps.

POINTER: This might include Multi-voting (Chapter
5) to rank the clusters for further
investigation, or creating a Relationship

Diagram (Chapter 6), to analyze
interrelationships between clusters in
order to identify the underlying root driver
of a system.

For customer interview data, you might
use a Survey (Chapter 7) to get
customer data on priorities.
Fol owing is an example. On the page after that is a blank
Affinity diagram worksheet.

Making Better Joe Kilbride, Kilbride Consulting, Inc.
Excerpt from Chapter 4: Making Ideas

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Fol owing is a (simplified) example of an Affinity Diagram.
It has 25 ideas, organized into five affinity groups. Ideas were generated for the fol owing Issue Question:
Issue = "What are all the factors related to getting operators to fill their new roles since the redesign of the
manufacturing organization?"

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Making Better Joe Kilbride, Kilbride Consulting, Inc.
Excerpt from Chapter 4: Making Ideas

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Affinity Technique
Roles
Issue:





Sponsor:


Scribe:

Facilitator:



Date:

Participants:









Timekeeper:





A.




J.
B.







I.
C.






H.
D.







G.
E.



Making Better Joe Kilbride, Kilbride Consulting, Inc.
Excerpt from Chapter 4: Making Ideas

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