Affinity Diagrams: Tips and Tricks

I recently had to complete a project which involved making an affinity diagram using hundreds of post-it notes. The process was time consuming and tedious but me and a teammate were able to get it done. Here are my tips for using Affinity Diagrams

1. Don’t be intimidated by the amount of data. In the case of feeling like you have too much data, know that there is no such thing! It means something, you just have to take your time and make sense of it all. It may take a few hours but you can tame the beast of information. Enlist the help of a team if necessary.

2. Don’t feel like you don’t have enough. I’ve created a few affinity diagrams and one of the many things I am initially concerned about is whether I have enough data. If you feel you don’t have a lot, don’t worry. You don’t need a lot of data to draw conclusions. Also, as you start to organize and structure your information new ideas and insights will surely surface. In that case add this to your diagram. If you still feel like things are missing revisit your research. You may have to do a bit more. Don’t get rid of the diagram you started though. Take it down carefully with the intent to rebuild it.

3. Don’t be afraid to add or remove notes and ideas. An affinity diagram is not meant to be a masterpiece. The idea is that it is flexible so don’t be afraid to add new ideas or remove ones that you realize are not particularly helpful.

4. Don’t prematurely add hierarchy, or timelines or anything else that can over-complicate things. The main point of an affinity diagram is to find trends, and put things into categories. Group things with like things. Don’t try to add hierarchy, process and connections between groups too soon. Your affinity diagram will begin to become a different diagram and this might lead to confusion or frustration about how to organize things. This will also limit your thinking about what ideas and notes can and cannot go into what groups. After you have grouped everything and you’ve reviewed everything again, then go back and draw conclusions about hierarchy etc.

5. Be clear, create a key and stick to it. If you are working with actual post-it notes on an actual wall you will probably want to make a key. If you are not able to reserve the room which your wall is in, you may have to rebuild it. Make sure its structured in way where you can do this. Give enough structure and direction that anyone who was handed your stack of post-its can recreate it. You can do this by giving colors and orientation of the post-its meaning.

6. Let the categories figure themselves out organically. Don’t force yourself into pre-decided categories. After doing your research you will likely already be thinking about trends and categories you noticed. However, you don’t want to try to force all your ideas into these categories. Many times categories will get larger and more broad or broken out to be more specific. Group like items with like items and then go back and create the category labels for each. Be open-minded and flexible. New trends will emerge. You will want to move things around.

7. Give yourself enough space. Find the biggest wall you can find. If you have a lot of data you will want a lot of space. Try to gauge how much space you need and then add to it. Having to move whole clusters of ideas closer or farther apart multiple times is a pain. Not to mention, your post-its may lose stickiness!

8. Take lots of pictures. Ideally of each cluster so you can go back read them as well as the whole diagram so you can see how everything was put together. This will help if you need to rebuild them. The post-it notes app is great and taking pictures is a quick way document things so you can take them with you.

9. Have fun. Our final diagram turned out to look a lot like flowers.