Clearly state what you're trying to solve or understand. This might be in question form, such as "Why are customers canceling their subscriptions?" or "How can we improve our onboarding process?"

Ensure the team understands and agrees on this focus before moving forward. A well-defined problem statement keeps the exercise on track and ensures you're gathering relevant ideas.

This is the brainstorming phase. Have everyone on the team generate ideas, insights, or observations about the problem. With Confluence whiteboards, you can write each idea on a sticky note or digital card.

The goal is to capture everything without judging or filtering. This allows your team to uncover hidden truths that might lead to breakthroughs.

Look for patterns and similarities among the ideas, insights, and observations. Move related thoughts together to form natural groupings. This part of the process is often intuitive, allowing you to start seeing the connections emerge as you go.

Be sure to let the categories form organically rather than trying to force ideas into predetermined groups. The patterns that naturally emerge often provide the most valuable insights about how different aspects of the problem relate to each other.

Once you have distinct groups, give each one a name that captures its theme. These labels should be specific enough to be meaningful but broad enough to encompass all the ideas in the group.

Effective category names will help team members understand what each group represents at a glance, making it easier to reference them in discussions and planning.

Next, figure out what these groupings tell you about the problem. Are some categories larger than others, suggesting priority areas? Are there unexpected connections between different groups?

This is where the real insights come from — the patterns and relationships that weren't obvious before organizing everything. Use this analysis to guide your strategic planning and next steps.

Now, it’s time to turn insights into action.  Use these new insights to develop an action plan, make decisions, and solve problems. Assign specific tasks to team members to address the issues or opportunities you've identified. You can use Confluence’s action plan template to get started with these next steps.

Affinity diagrams aren't set in stone. As your team gains new information or perspectives, revisit the diagram to ensure it captures everything necessary. Add new ideas, recategorize existing ones, or create new groups as needed.

This ongoing refinement ensures that your understanding of the problem evolves and deepens, keeping your solutions relevant and effective.