Catalog
method#Product#Delivery#Software Engineering

Affinity Diagram

A facilitation method for grouping and synthesizing qualitative ideas and observations in workshops.

An affinity diagram is a structured facilitation method for grouping and synthesizing qualitative ideas, observations, or requirements.
Established
Medium

Classification

  • Medium
  • Organizational
  • Organizational
  • Intermediate

Technical context

Digital whiteboards (e.g., Miro, Mural)Documentation tools (Confluence)Project management boards (Jira, Trello)

Principles & goals

Make outputs visible first, then categorizeSilent clustering promotes independent perspectivesFacilitation ensures focus and consistent naming
Discovery
Team, Domain

Use cases & scenarios

Compromises

  • Dominant participants can bias groupings
  • Vague categories lead to unusable results
  • Lack of follow-up renders results ineffective
  • Include a silent phase before discussions
  • Use small, mixed groups for initial clustering
  • Document results and follow up

I/O & resources

  • Interview or research notes
  • Stakeholder feedback
  • Raw ideas or problem statements
  • Clustered thematic landscape
  • Prioritized hypotheses and to-dos
  • Visual documentation for decisions

Description

An affinity diagram is a structured facilitation method for grouping and synthesizing qualitative ideas, observations, or requirements. Teams use it in workshops to reveal patterns, form hypotheses, and clarify priorities. It fosters shared sense-making and supports early-stage decision making in product discovery.

✔

  • Quick consolidation of large amounts of qualitative data
  • Fosters shared interpretation and team alignment
  • Supports prioritization and hypothesis formation

✖

  • Outcome quality depends on facilitation skill
  • Not suitable for strongly quantitative analyses
  • Time-consuming with very large datasets without preparation

  • Number of consolidated themes

    Measures how many thematic clusters were produced from raw data.

  • Time to first prioritization

    Records duration from workshop start to first priority list.

  • Implementation rate of derived actions

    Share of recommended actions implemented within a defined period.

UX team synthesis at a bank

UX researchers consolidated interview data into an affinity diagram, identified key pain points and prioritized quick wins.

Product discovery at a SaaS startup

A cross-functional team used the method to cluster customer feedback and generate roadmap themes.

Retrospective in a DevOps team

After several incidents the affinity diagram helped group recurring causes and plan actions.

1

Define objective and timeframe

2

Collect data and create cards

3

Perform silent clustering or small-group clustering

4

Name and consolidate groups

5

Prioritize and derive next steps

⚠️ Technical debt & bottlenecks

  • Unstructured result storage hinders later use
  • Untracked actions accumulate into open issues
  • Lack of standard templates leads to inefficiency
Facilitation skillTime budgetData quality
  • Using affinity diagram as pure brainstorming without synthesis
  • Inviting only leaders and excluding broad perspectives
  • Not converting results into decisions or backlog items
  • Producing too many cards without prioritization causes confusion
  • Unclear categories lead to redundant clusters
  • Missing documentation after the workshop
Facilitation and visualization skillsAnalytical synthesis competenceDomain or user understanding
Create shared understandingEfficient synthesis of qualitative dataTraceable prioritization
  • • Limited workshop duration
  • • Availability of relevant stakeholders
  • • Physical or digital tools required