Bull’s-Eye Diagramming

Bull’s-eye diagramming is a great tool to help your team focus on the critical items to help you achieve your overall goal.

It helps limit how much you can identify as critical, encouraging conversation and consensus on essential items before pursuing your idea or creating your solution.

Using a target-like diagram, each successive circle is larger than the bull’s eye to encourage careful consideration on what’s critical, what’s important, and what could be saved for later.

Best Practices

Size your circles appropriately. Size the center of the ring to fit a limited number of items. This encourages the team to truly prioritize what is essential.

Enforce a time limit. To prevent from going into the weeds, enforce a time limit on each round of deliberation.

Review each topic area separately. This helps teams have a targeted discussion without having to change courses constantly mid-discussion.

Basic Steps

1. Identify a project that requires prioritization. What tasks, ideas, or opportunities do you need to narrow down?

2. Make a large poster with 3 concentric circles. From the inside out, label the circles primary, secondary, and tertiary. Anything that lands outside of the circles can be used as a “parking lot” for future implementations.

3. Divide your items into specific topic areas. This will help your team have a targeted discussion when plotting the data on your diagram.

4. Print your data on small strips of paper or write them on sticky notes. It may help to use different colors for each topic area.

5. Debate the relative importance of each item. This invites collaboration, discussion, and consensus to prioritize each item.

6. Plot the data on the target to set priorities. Ensure the team has shared understanding of what items are critical and what can be saved for later.

Benefits

• Helps you determine what’s most essential
• Encourages productive discussion
• Builds consensus amongst the team
• Helps your team focus on what to include in your action plan