Affinity Diagrams
Workshop 3: Affinity Diagrams & Interrelationship Diagraphs
The tools practiced in this workshop are:
• Brainstorming
• Affinity diagrams
• Interrelationship diagraphs
Situation:
Consider that you/your group works for Vic & Anthony’s (a premier steakhouse restaurant) and you have been tasked with perfecting the “customer experience.” In the
Analyze phase of your Lean Six Sigma project, you decide to brainstorm ideas for why customers might have a negative experience dining with you. Then, you plan to use
an affinity diagram and an interrelationship diagraph to organize all these ideas and then pin-point the key driver(s) and outcome(s) of this problem.
Instructions:
Use information from your training manual in Analyze Phase – Lessons 2-6 to assist you with the activities that follow. Be sure to follow the “best practices” for each
tool you use in this workshop.
Activities:
1. Brainstorm ideas for why customers might have a negative experience dining with you.
Note: You do not have to show your work here, as it will be shown in Activity #2.
2. Create an affinity diagram that organizes your ideas for why customers might have a negative experience dining with you:
[Paste your work from Microsoft Visio here (use template provided in Blackboard). Please ensure your work is readable on an 8½ in. x 11 in. piece of paper or you will
not receive credit for your work.]
3. Create an interrelationship diagraph that shows the relationships between causes for why customers might have a negative experience dining with you and that
highlights the key driver(s) and key outcome(s) you identify regarding this problem:
[Paste your work from Microsoft Visio here (use template provided in Blackboard). Please ensure your work is readable on an 8½ in. x 11 in. piece of paper or you will
not receive credit for your work.]
(continued on next page)
4. Please briefly summarize (in just one sentence or so) the results from your interrelationship diagraph in terms of a cause-and-effect relationship between your
key driver(s) and key outcome(s). [Please note that if your conclusion does not make sense initially in terms of a logical cause-and-effect relationship, you may need
to revise the work in your interrelationship diagraph.]
