2.

Affinity Diagram

The Affinity Diagram is one of the Seven Management and Planning Tools. It is a

business tool used to organize ideas and data. The tool is commonly used within project

management and allows large numbers of ideas stemming from brainstorming to be

sorted into groups, based on their natural relationships, for review and analysis. It is

also frequently used in contextual inquiry as a way to organize notes and insights from

field interviews. It can also be used for organizing other freeform comments, such as

open-ended survey responses, support call logs, or other qualitative data. Quality

managers, project managers, marketing professionals, and anyone who uses

brainstorming to generate ideas can use an affinity diagram to distill a large number of

ideas to a refined set of related categories.

People have been grouping data into groups based on natural relationships for

thousands of years; however, the term affinity diagram was devised by Jiro Kawakita in

the 1960s and is sometimes referred to as the KJ Method.

The affinity diagram organizes ideas with following steps:

1. Record each idea on cards or notes.

2. Look for ideas that seem to be related.

3. Sort cards into groups until all cards have been used.

Once the cards have been sorted into groups the team may sort large clusters

into subgroups for easier management and analysis. Once completed, the affinity

diagram may be used to create a cause and effect diagram.

completed by a cross-functional team, including key stakeholders. The process requires

becoming deeply immersed in the data, which has benefits beyond the tangible

deliverables. It is key that the ideas shouldn’t be discussed until the final affinity diagram

is complete and when the discussion is taking place, verbal data through spoken words

should also be recorded.

Some of practices to keep in mind when making an affinity diagram are as follows:

 Identify the purpose. Begin by deciding what issue or aspect of your

business you wish to focus on with your diagram. Place it at the top of the

page.

 Determine groupings. Decide on a logical set of related categories.

 Determine contributing factors. Make a list of ideas and issues generated

by the brainstorm.

 Organize. Place each factor or idea beneath a category. Try combining

duplicate issues to simplify.

 Analyze and share. Step back and look at the diagram. Analyze with

various other coworkers or team members and it should be able to help you

make a decision or see things more clearly.

The process decision program chart (PDPC) systematically identifies what might

go wrong in a plan under development. Countermeasures are developed to prevent or

offset those problems. By using PDPC, you can either revise the plan to avoid the

problems or be ready with the best response when a problem occurs.

The Process Decision Program Chart is ideally used in the following scenarios:

 Before implementing a plan, especially when the plan is large and complex.

 When the plan must be completed on schedule.

 When the price of failure is high.

PDPC Procedure

1. Obtain or develop a tree diagram of the proposed plan. This should be a high-

level diagram showing the objective, a second level of main activities and a third

level of broadly defined tasks to accomplish the main activities.

2. For each task on the third level, brainstorm what could go wrong.

3. Review all the potential problems and eliminate any that are improbable or

whose consequences would be insignificant. Show the problems as a fourth level

linked to the tasks.

4. For each potential problem, brainstorm possible countermeasures. These might

be actions or changes to the plan that would prevent the problem, or actions that
 would remedy it once it occurred. Show the countermeasures as a fifth level,

outlined in clouds or jagged lines.

5. Decide how practical each countermeasure is. Use criteria such as cost, time

required, ease of implementation and effectiveness. Mark impractical

countermeasures with an X and practical ones with an O.

Sample Process Decision Program Chart

7. Prioritization Matrix

Many departments struggle to balance a growing list of new and pending projects

while the need for core services continues, often with less funding. Deciding how to

prioritize and separate the high priority projects from lower priority projects can be
daunting. Since emotions often run high when making these kinds of decisions, a

structured and objective approach can be helpful in achieving consensus and balancing

the needs of the department and its customers and stakeholders. Using a prioritization

matrix is a proven technique for making tough decisions in an objective way.

A prioritization matrix is a simple tool that provides a way to sort a diverse set of

items into an order of importance. It also identifies their relative importance by deriving a

numerical value for the priority of each item. The matrix provides a means for ranking

projects (or project requests) based on criteria that are determined to be important. This

enables a department to see clearly which projects are the most important to focus on

first, and which, if any, could be put on hold or discontinued.

A prioritization matrix supports structured decision-making in the following ways:

 Helps prioritize complex or unclear issues when there are multiple criteria for

determining importance

 Provides a quick and easy, yet consistent, method for evaluating options

 Takes some of the emotion out of the process

 Quantifies the decision with numeric rankings

 Is adaptable for many priority-setting needs (projects, services, personal, etc.)

 When used with a group of people, it facilitates reaching agreement on priorities

and key issues

 Establishes a platform for conversations about what is important