


In UX Design, Affinity Diagram is used primarily by teams to quickly organize ideas about UX strategy and vision after a design-ideation meeting. Among the many tools used by Six Sigma project teams, the one that consistently is used successfully by all types of teams is the Affinity Diagram. Six Sigma is a method that is aimed at improving any sort of business processes from manufacturing to transactions. For example, When there is a large amount of uncategorized data, or when you need to stimulate idea generation and new patterns of thinking. Affinity Diagrams for Project ManagementĪn affinity diagram may be utilized by project teams in manual project planning when working in an area with incomplete knowledge. Sorting these ideas into categories can help synthesize results and find common affinities within the ideas. It’s the organized second step, once the bulk of ideas have been generated. Affinity Diagrams for Brainstormingīrainstorming is the most common application for Affinity Diagrams. If you’d like to explore additional brainstorming techniques, we’ve rounded up 15 brainstorming techniques and templates you can use collaboratively with your team. When to use an Affinity Diagram?Īffinity Diagrams are already widely used broadly within Design Thinking frameworks for a range of purposes, so why not give it a try and supercharge your collaborative problem solving. We’ve created a simple affinity diagram template and guide you can use for your Affinity Diagrams. As clear themes start to emerge, you can consider multiple solutions to each problem. Affinity mapping allows all ideas to be strategically analyzed- instead of just focusing on one of two standouts. This process of creating affinity diagrams is known as affinity mapping. It is a visual map that organizes ideas into categorized clusters after the initial brainstorming. This is where an Affinity Diagram comes in (also known as an affinity chart or K-J method after its founder Kawakita Jiro). But it isn’t the most structured way to work with this board full of ideas and information, and at the end of the session teams may leave teams feeling frustrated if there are no clear takeaways. Brainstorming is a great way to come up with creative ideas as a team.
