Project Update
This week was a super busy & productive one! We conducted several interviews internally at Sounding Board with both managers and direct reports to learn more about how managers play a role in direct reports’ career trajectories and leadership development journeys. We conducted 4 reviews with direct reports and 3 with managers. We’re hoping to get one more manager next week.
We’ve started analyzing that data through empathy mapping, a method used to analyze interview data. What each participant “says,” “feels,” “does,” and “thinks” is mapped accross four quadrants. It allows us to start breaking down the raw interview data so that we can find patterns/themes accross participants.
Next week, we’ll start searching for external participants participants to interview, and we’ll contiue to analyze the data through empathy mapping!
Readings
Affinity diagramming/mapping is a method used by design researchers to synthesize and organize large amounts of qualitative data (typically from interviews, ethnographic studies, or usability testing). “Affinity notes”—short observations, quotes, and important details—are derived from each interview/session. Each note contains only one idea or thought. Affinity notes are then clustered into groups, allowing researchers to identify emerging themes and insights from the study. Researchers often finish the process by prioritizing certain actionable insights and delivering their findings to stakeholders. Affinity mapping is almost always done in a group setting, with multiple stakeholders coming together to try and make sense of the data (Lepley, 1998; Pernice, 2018).
In our work at Sounding Board, we made empathy maps based on our interviews with managers and direct reports, which involved creating “affinity notes” for each individual participant. We then organized these notes into an affinity diagram, allowing us to identify themes and further areas of study. While empathy mapping helped us analyze the data for each individual participant, affinity mapping allowed us to spot patterns across participants.
Sources
Lepley, C. J. (1998). Problem-Solving Tools for Analyzing System Problems: The Affinity Map and the Relationship Diagram. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 28(12), 44.
Pernice, K. (2018, February 18). Affinity Diagramming: Collaboratively Sort UX Findings & Design Ideas. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/affinity-diagram/