Affinity Diagram

  The Affinity Diagram is a powerful tool to use during projects with team members.  It is an analytical tool that teams can use to organize ideas into subgroups with a common theme or relationship. The affinity diagram can help you see correlation in large amounts of data/information.  

It was created by Jiro Kawakita. There are many different methods that practitioners use to develop or build the affinity diagram.  In 2015 Lean Strategies International LLC created the ©CURE  methodology, which is a simple four step methodology that teams can use to group large amounts of data, establish innovative ideas and find solutions to issues while getting the most out of opportunities.  The four steps for our upcoming course on the ©CURE methodology are shown below.

1. Communicate - Facilitator will ask a question so everyone can provide input and or ideas.  
2. Understand - Understand the what your input is and write it down.  One idea per sticky.
3. Reveal - Each participant places there input where everyone can see (e.g. wall).  They then explain their inputs on the wall for a set amount of time.  Team members can take notes but should not reject or disapprove of ideas.
4. Evaluate - Now the team can place all of the ideas in groups based on a common theme or relationship.  Give each theme a name and confirm consensus and that's it.  the ©CURE.

Click on the photo above to visit the The CURE Methodology Course.

Learn More Here!