Futures Wheel for Brainstorming

If you’re like me, a typical day consists of a million tiny decisions that you’ve gotten really good at answering. “What should I eat for breakfast?” or “What Netflix show should I binge next?” But occasionally, there are some decisions that require more thought, either because they’re too complicated or just really important.

Recently, I’ve found Jerome C Glenn’s “Futures Wheel” to be a helpful exercise when thinking through those situations. In Glenn’s own words, “the futures wheel offers ‘a kind of structured brainstorming’ about the future. We start with a root trend; then, in a ring around the trend, we write some of its potential consequences.