Building an Affinity Diagram on the Whiteboard. Credit: cmu.edu
Sometime back I attended a brainstorming session where people had to share opinions about mobile phones and also come up with ideas that could make phones less complex for the common man.
We would write down our ideas on sticky notes (of different colors) and the organizer would then stick these notes on to a large whiteboard. The session continued until evening and by the time we wrapped up, there were a few dozen sticky notes arranged on that whiteboard.
Video: What is an Affinity Diagram
This is called the Affinity process and what we ultimately had on the whiteboard is called an Affinity Diagram. It was fun but imagine how cumbersome it would be to put all that information into a spreadsheet and then re-create the affinity map on a computer later.
Microsft Sticky Sorter interface
To solve this problem, the very innovative team of Microsoft Office Labs today release a new software – Sticky Sorter – that makes it very easy to create affinity maps on the computer using data that you have saved Excel or CSV files. Watch the following video to learn more about the Sticky Sorter tool and its application.
Video: What can you do with Microsft Sticky Sorter tool.
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/software/create-affinity-diagrams-with-sticky-sorter/5465/
Tags: brainstorming, feature, meeting, sticky notes, useful, Software
Reader Comments
I downloaded the program, but aborted the install when I found it REQUIRES you to allow it to send usage tracking information to Microsoft.
Sorry, that’s spyware in my book.
Written by Larry C on 11.19.08
I guess all programs released under Office Live Labs require you to tick that “track usage” box before installing. May be you should wait until these utilities graduate from the labs, it at all they manage to.
Written by labnol on 11.19.08
I love the Office Labs team. They’ve made a good number of handy dandy productivity tools, and some neat Office add-ons. I also like the Live Labs team too btw, as they create compelling stuff too. Windows should have its own Windows Labs type of thing too.
Sticky Sorter would be awesome if Microsoft could integrate this into SharedView or Groove or some type of collaboration software. Also, imaging using Sticky Sorter on a multi-touch capable machine (such as Windows 7 or Surface). That would be sweet!
Written by Quikboy on 11.19.08
I have tried using this software but unfortunately it doesn’t support the Beyer and Holtzblatt method of affinity Diagramming for (at least) two reasons.
1) It doesn’t allow more than one level of hierarchy. You should be able to put stickies in groups and then those groups should be able to be in higher level groups.
2) You cannot group items without naming the group. This explicitly goes against the purpose of affinity diagramming. The point is to let the data name the category… Go from the bottom up. You should be able to group items without naming the group.
Other comments: Requiring me to send tracking information makes me disinclined to use this software. I agree with the first poster that this should be optional. Also, it would be nice if I could tag stickies also and then sort by tag in addition to what group it is in. I guess I am looking for more than one way to sort data.
Overall, a nice start but until they stop forcing me to send usage data and fix this so that it can actually be used for affinity diagrams, I won’t be using it. Thanks!
Written by Daniel on 11.26.08