Leading by Adventure - 041 - Silent Sorting

Gain new insights into situations by allowing patterns to emerge – Use affinity diagrams to drive greater participation and ownership

Image of notes on a wall prior to silent sorting and creating an affinity diagram

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Why take this challenge?

Build more cohesive understanding of the way forward…

… and greater commitment to pursue it

Inspire higher levels of participation and engagement in meetings

Graphic image reflecting different pathways to take the adventure

For those who are already aware of the power of the affinity diagram, this will be a very easy week (unless you want to take the opportunity of this adventure to introduce it to others).

For those who have never used an affinity diagram before, we hope this adventure will help you discover a new way of identifying different subgroups and patterns within collections of information.

These collections can be the results of a brainstorm, or jobs to be done, or things to achieve, or anything. However, to use the affinity technique, each item needs to be on a separate card or sticky-note (or virtual equivalent) that can be moved around independently.

This movement of ideas and information makes the Affinity diagram an ideal tool for ensuring participation in meetings, and for building consensus and commitment toward its outcomes (a topic we address in our article ‘Meeting is a Verb’)

There are a few simple rules for the affinity diagram, the key one of which is absolute silence. These rules make it (relatively) easy for people to see and take on board the perspectives of other people. And through this to be part of evolving a shared perspective. Albeit, one perspective of many that could be taken.

+ Green track - taking it in your stride

Try it for yourself

Affinity is at its most powerful with groups of people, where its dynamics help people to develop and take ownership of new shared perspectives.

However, as a tool, I find it useful for helping me to organise disparate thoughts into a meaningful structure for communication to others – such as items in a presentation, collating meeting notes, or reorganising an existing list.

The green track this week is about trying a new tool to do this.

Copy and paste your items into a spreadsheet such that they form a column of separate cells. Then open the conceptboard affinity template. Copy the cells from the spreadsheet (up to 100 of them on the free version of Conceptboard) and paste them into the template, where they should appear as separate sticky notes.

Then simply move them around the board, one by one. Group those that have a particular affinity together, and separate those that don’t. Keep going until you have fitted what you can into a pattern. But feel free to break up and reform groups as your sense of the different affinities evolves.

+ Blue track - a bit of a workout (click to open)

Try it with a few others

The blue track this week is about trying an Affinity Diagram out with a few other people to see how it works for groups of people. This could be around a brainstorm of ideas, or a group of activities, or entities that need grouping.

Ensure you have familiarised yourself with the guidance for Affinity Diagrams and invite a few people to join you. This might be around a set of sticky notes spread out over a whiteboard, or you might use the materials you set up for the green track.

Explain to those you have gathered the rules of the affinity diagram, and emphasise the importance of sticking to them. Then simply let them get on with it and see what emerges. Be strict on silence. If things play yo-yo, let them work out for themselves that they may have different interpretations of what is written.

Undertake a debrief at the end.

+ Red track - stepping up to bat (click to open)

You may find the following resources helpful in tackling your challenge or in gaining further benefits from the skills and insights you develop

To catch up on past adventures you may have missed, feel free to browse our Adventures Library

Let us know how you get on.
Share your experience, your insights and your observation using the comments section at the bottom of the Linkedin post.

Please help us to extend and develop our community by sharing what you are doing. Click on the links below where you are most active, and then like or share the article to your network. Thank you for helping.

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Useful links:

Introduction to Leading by Adventure  |  What we mean by spirituality?  |  Why Adventure
Adventures to date   |  I did it, but it didn’t work very well   |  How do I know if it is working
Bringing this thinking into your meetings   |  Adventure & Mental Health
Leading by Adventure community   |  Explore Strategic Support options