A pool of ideas, generated from a brainstorming session, needs to be analyzed, prioritized before they can be implemented. A smaller set of ideas are easy to sift through and evaluate without applying any formal technique. Affinity diagramming is an effective technique to handle a large number of ideas. It is typically used when

1. Large data set is to be traversed, like ideas generated from brainstorming and sieve for prioritization.
2. Complexity due to diverse views and opinions.
3. Group involvement and consensus. The process of affinity diagramming requires the team to categorize the ideas based on their subject knowledge thereby making it easy to sift and prioritize ideas. Fig. 8 shows an example affinity diagram with prioritized ideas categorized into different headings.