During a scientific expedition to a remote Japanese mountain village in 1951, Japanese anthropologist and ethno-geographer, Professor Jiro Kawakita struggled to integrate masses of non-repetitive, heterogenous, qualitative field notes that had been collected on note cards (Scupin, 1997). It was only
when Kawakita altered the spatial arrangement of the note cards on his desk that he began to discover the holistic meaning that had been recorded on the cards.
Over the next 15 years, Kawakita would systematize and develop this initial insight as both a research method and a creative idea-generating method known as the Kawakita Jiro or KJ method. The KJ method involves a centuries-long neglected form of reasoning called Abduction that is neither deduction nor induction and is used to sort out chaotic, confusing ideas such as when a researcher chooses a hypothesis to test from several options (Scupin, 1997). Upon the completion of the method, Kawakita published and outlined the KJ method in his books “Hasso Ho” (Way of Abduction) in 1967 and “Ziku Hasso Ho” (Sequel to Way of Abduction) in 1970 (Yoneyama, 2007). Since that time, the KJ method has become popular among Japanese corporations and quality practitioners who regard it as a tool to be utilised within total quality management (Lepley, 1998). Furthermore, Takai and Ishii (2010) suggested that the KJ method has become essential in the product development process for the identification of customer needs and sorting of a large number of these needs into a smaller more manageable number of representative need categories.
Lepley (1998) recommends using the KJ method when much time is required to identify the root cause of a problem and solutions are not needed immediately. Proctor, Tan, and Fuse (2004) note that the KJ method, like other less well-known Japanese creativity techniques, places great emphasis on understanding the meaning of words or observations especially when used by groups. This emphasis is highly congruent with the pillars of Japanese creativity, namely focuses on teamwork, training, communication, and processes (Proctor et al., 2004). However, it should be noted that although the KJ method is commonly used by groups, it can be used by individuals as well.
The KJ method consists of the following steps that must be followed:
1. Agree on a problem to be solved or a question to answered (Lepley, 1998). It should be noted that when the method is used by a group that consensus must be reached about the question before proceeding.
2. Card-making: Ideas relevant to the question are written on cards or sticky notes or adhesive labels (Scupin, 1997). This idea-generation occurs in silence for 7-10 minutes (Lepley, 1998). Only one idea with a clear meaning must be written down on a card and no judgement of the importance of any single idea is permitted at this stage (Ohiwa, Takeda, Kawai, & Shiomi, 1997). 3. Card-grouping: The collected cards are then shuffled, spread out on a table or large sheet of paper (in the case of sticky notes and labels), and read silently and carefully a few times (Calwell,
n.d). Through this repeated reading, the individual or group will begin to notice that some ideas are similar or closely related. It is important that intuition is used in judging the similarity and relatedness, as over-reliance on logic will make the process less organic (Scupin, 1997). Natural groups or themes will begin to emerge among the ideas. Participants are allowed to silently move the cards to form these groups and moving a card previously moved by another participant is acceptable (George, Rowlands, Price, & Maxey, 2005). Silence is maintained even when participants disagree on where a card must be placed, and such a card must be duplicated and placed in both groups. Card-grouping should be repeated until less than 10 groups remain. Headings or titles are then selected that reflect the contents of each group of ideas (Calwell, n.d). This selection is reached by a consensus approach in one of two ways. One, headers may be drafted via an interactive group discussion or, two, the facilitator may formulate titles during a break and then puts these options to the group to decide.
4. Optional header-grouping: If so desired, participants may review the 10 headers and if some of these headings logically represent a common broader theme, a master header or supergroup header is created for the larger cluster of group headings (George et al., 2005; Plain, 2007). Idea groups that do not fit under any supergroup heading may remain as a single group on its own (George et al., 2005).
5. Chart-making: This step involves arranging the groups of ideas on a large sheet of paper after the original question is written at the top of the sheet. See Figure 2.6 below. The participants must thoroughly consider the semantic relationships of idea groups and their representation as the spatial relationships on the chart (Ohiwa et al., 1997). This chart is called an affinity diagram, because it organizes ideas based on how these ideas inherently go together or possess a natural similarity (Haselden, 2003). This spatial representation helps participants appreciate the overall problem situation (Calwell, n.d.). Relationship lines may be drawn between groups and individual ideas within different groups and it may also be beneficial to write comments on the affinity diagram (Ohiwa et al., 1997).
6. The explanation of the resultant affinity diagram is written. The affinity diagram can be thought of as the spatial representation of the problem, while the written explanation is the sequential representation of the same information (Ohiwa et al., 1997). It is beneficial to ask participants to consider how the idea groups that they have developed will influence possible solutions (George et al., 2005). Several oversights made during the previous step or aspects of the problem invisible up to this point may be discovered during this step. It should be emphasized that solutions to the problem are often generated whilst participants explain what the affinity diagram (See Figure 2.6) means to them (Calwell, n.d.)
The KJ method works best when ample ideas with sufficient detail are generated (Gray, Brown, & Macanufo, 2010). To ensure that the quality of the sorting is high and results in meaningful categories, participants’ insights into relationships between ideas must be clear (Gray et al., 2010).
Figure 2.6. An example structure of an affinity diagram. Reprinted from “Problem-solving tools for analyzing system problems: The affinity map and the relationship diagram,” by C.J. Lepley, 1998, The Journal of Nursing Administration, 28, p. 46. Copyright 1998 by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.
As the KJ method relies on consensus when applied by a group (especially for the initial question and card-grouping steps), the potential exists for a few participants’ opinions to skew the grouping (Takai & Ishii, 2010). Another limitation is that it is difficult to objectively verify that all participants’ opinions are reflected in grouping steps (Takai & Ishii, 2010).