Moving Beyond the Diagram

The true power of an affinity diagram lies in what follows. It’s not just about organizing ideas; it’s about using those insights to drive action. Whether you create an interrelationship diagram, dive into root cause analysis, or develop a focused action plan, this tool is the starting point for meaningful change.

When tackling complex challenges in Quality Assurance or any team-driven environment, the affinity diagram is a great go-to tool for organizing thoughts and identifying solutions. It’s simple yet powerful, and it’s been a game-changer for managing large amounts of information or brainstorming results, helping teams work smarter, not harder.

So what is an Affinity Diagram?

An affinity diagram, sometimes called an affinity chart or K-J Method, organizes a large number of ideas into natural groupings. Think of it as a structured way to make sense of chaos after a brainstorming session. The method was developed in the 1960s by Jiro Kawakita, a Japanese anthropologist, and it’s an intuitive way to tap into a team’s creativity and shared understanding.

Here’s when an affinity diagram can be handy:

1. When you’re faced with a mess of ideas or facts that feel overwhelming.
2. When a problem is complex and hard to grasp.
3. When you need the entire team to come to a consensus.

Some typical situations, include but are not limited to:

• After a brainstorming session

• While analyzing verbal data, like survey results

• While collecting and organizing large data sets

• While developing relationships or themes among ideas

• While categorizing attributes to address them at a higher level

The affinity diagram process lets a group move beyond its habitual thinking and preconceived categories. This technique accesses excellent knowledge and understanding residing untapped in our intuition. Affinity diagrams tend to have 40 to 60 items; however, seeing 100 to 200 items is not unusual.

This method isn’t just for Quality Assurance; it works in any environment where ideas need structure.

How the Process Works

The affinity diagram process is straightforward and involves just a few materials: sticky notes or cards, markers, and a large surface like a wall or table. Here’s how I approach it in a 3 step process.

Step 1: Gather and Record Ideas

Each idea gets written on a sticky note. Whether from a brainstorming session or as input from a group, every thought gets its own note. These notes are then randomly placed on a surface so everyone can see them.

Key Tip: Use markers to ensure the text is readable from a distance and keep ideas short—three to seven words per note works best.

Step 2a: Find relationships and ideas that seem to be related

Team members sort the notes generated in Step 1 into related groups. In this step, we are attempting to look for relationships between individual ideas. Have team members simultaneously sort the ideas (without talking) into five to ten related groupings. Repeat until all notes are grouped. It’s okay to have “loners” that don’t fit a group(you can duplicate them). This step is all about intuition.

Key Tip: Even though it may sound strange, it’s very important that no one talks during this step. The focus should be on finding and grouping related ideas. Talking and communication could influence others and interrupt the natural flow of the exercise.

 Step 2b: Discuss and define categories with your team

Once the notes are grouped as described in Step 2a, the team discusses what the groupings mean. Categories or headers for each group are defined to capture their essence. If there’s no clear header, create one. You can discuss the shape of the chart, any surprising patterns, and reasons for moving controversial notes. Make changes and move ideas around as necessary. When ideas are grouped to the team’s satisfaction, select a heading for each group. To do so, look for a note in each grouping that captures the meaning of the group. Place it at the top of the group. If there is no note, write one. Often, I’ve found it’s helpful to write or highlight this note in a different color.

Key Tip: Notes should identify the common thread for all groupings and describe that thread.

Step 3: Combine groups and create supergroups/clusters and next steps

If appropriate, the team reviews the supergroups/clusters and prioritizes which ideas to focus on combining groups. This step will help simplify the structure further and assign ideas to actionable categories. Large affinity diagrams are overwhelming and can stall the group's progress on initiatives, so it’s important to leave the workshop with a plan to move forward.

Key Tip: Base assignment on “your gut feel,” not through contemplation.

Key Tip: If team members struggle to reach a final discussion, consider using dot voting or dot coding techniques when prioritizing clusters.

Real-World Applications

Here’s how I’ve seen affinity diagrams make a difference:

• In Manufacturing: A team brainstormed performance indicators for a new process and grouped their ideas under themes like product quality, safety, and costs. This helped them focus their improvement efforts effectively.
• In the Pharmaceutical Industry, a team used an affinity diagram to understand barriers to on-time medication delivery. They identified categories like staffing issues and process inefficiencies, paving the way for targeted interventions.
• In Onboarding Processes: A company analyzed challenges in onboarding new employees. By grouping problems under themes like training, technology, and paperwork, they identified actionable focus areas for improvement.

Dos and Don’ts

While there isn’t a set of hard and fast rules of how to do affinity diagramming, keep the following dos and don’ts in mind to set yourself up for success:

• To avoid session fatigue, prioritize large amounts of data before the workshop. Take a first pass through the data and consider the most relevant information for your audience. If all data is relevant and your workshop has many participants, break up participants into smaller groups to tackle more information simultaneously instead of navigating a very long workshop.
• Encouraging participation from all team members brings a wonderful variety of perspectives to the table. Remember, every voice matters, even the outliers! To create a rich and diverse affinity diagram, invite team members who can share fresh ideas and even challenge conventional viewpoints. These different perspectives can lead to lively discussions right from the start and help us prioritize the best paths forward. It's important that everyone feels heard during the workshop, so let’s ensure everyone has an equal opportunity to lead the conversation.
• When it comes to drafting clear and concise clusters, let’s avoid forcing them together. There’s no magic number of clusters you need to create while assembling your affinity diagram—so feel free to let ideas flow naturally! Group sticky notes that resonate with similar concepts, and label each cluster with a name that truly reflects all the ideas within it.
• Stay open to reorganization and remember not to overcategorize your ideas. One of the great advantages of using sticky notes is their flexibility; they’re easy to move around! Since team members might have different insights about the best way to group the notes, if you're unsure, don’t hesitate to duplicate a sticky note and place it in multiple clusters. It’s all about collaboration!

#QuaityManagement #QMS #GMP #AffinityDiagram #Quality Assurance