Integrated Project Management

The First Project Task List Meeting: Using the Affinity Diagram to Create the Task List

The affinity diagram exercise has proven to be very useful in creating project task lists. It enables team members to individually identify every task they know of, and in a fast-moving process, to group all of them together. These groups then are defined either as major tasks or work packages. Using this method, a well-structured task list that has hundreds of tasks can be produced in a very short time. The team performs the affinity diagram exercise at the first project task list meeting, with the focus of the exercise being the team members' individual task lists.

The project manager must obtain a meeting room with a large blackboard or other large surface ...