June 19, 2025

The KJ-Method for Establishing Priorities

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Aim

This exercise uses the KJ-Method to help groups effectively establish priorities and make decisions. When resources are limited this exercise helps organizations to assess what is most important and reach a group consensus. Allow about one hour for completion.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to …

identify business priorities
reach a group consensus democratically with each voice having equal weight

Facilitator Guidance

The KJ-Method, named after its inventor, Jiro Kawakita (the Japanese put their last names first), enables groups to quickly reach a consensus on priorities. It is particularly useful in a situation when team members have different opinions on how to proceed. A wide variety of people from across the organization will help to ensure that the outcome reflects as many opinions as possible.

Participants should be asked to consider a focus question. The focus question will be something the organization needs to reach a group decision on, such as:

What strategic growth options are open to us?
How can we reduce our costs?
What advantages/disadvantages do our competitors have over us?

Suggested Resources

two different colors of Post-it™ notes
flipchart and pens
large room with lots of wall space

What to Do (60 minutes)

Introduce the exercise and learning objectives.
Write up the focus question.
Give each participant a bundle of Post-it™ notes, and explain that each participant will work individually.
Inform participants that they will now have 10 minutes to brainstorm as many answers, ideas and suggestions to the focus question as possible. Each answer, idea or suggestion goes on an individual Post-it™ note.
Ask the participants to place the Post-its™ randomly on a wall. Allow the group a few minutes to walk around the room and read the other participants’ answers.
Now, ask the participants to move the Post-its™ into similar themed groups. This should be done by individuals, without group discussion. First explain the following to the group:

Take two items that seem like they group together and place them on a blank section of wall. Then move any other similar items into that group.
Feel free to move items into groups other people have created, and likewise move items out of groups if you think they would be better placed in a different group.
Continue until each item is in a group, although some items may not fit in another group and will be alone.

Using the second color of Post-its™, each participant, still working individually, should write down a name that best represents the topics within each group, for example ‘Technical Limitations’ or ‘Staffing Levels’.
Once everyone has stuck their name for each group on the wall beside that group, eliminate any duplicates. Ask each participant to put an X on the Post-it™ with the name they feel best describes the group. The name with the most X’s becomes the name of the group.
Repeat the focus question, and ask each participant to note down the three groups they feel are most important, and then allocate three points to the one of highest importance, two points to the middle one, and one point to the least important. Again, each one should be written on an individual Post-it™ note.
Write the name of each group on individual flipchart sheets and pin them to the wall. Ask participants to put their ranked Post-its™ on the appropriate sheet.
Add up the scores for each group – the groups with the highest scores are the participants’ consensus of the most important groups.

Review Activity and Apply Learning

Review the highest scoring groups with the participants, and agree an action plan for taking these actions or solutions forward. A follow up meeting to agree the action plan and allocate tasks may be needed depending on how complicated the solutions are.
Because the groups have been ranked and agreed by participants from across the organization, without any peer pressure being applied, the actions or solutions agreed typically stand the test of time.