What’s on Your Radar? template

What’s on your radar is a participatory research method where you outline and prioritize ideas based on their relevance to a score topic. This exercise helps teams understand and prioritize tasks to improve decision-making.

Use this template to organize items and ideas within a given scope based on how important or relevant they are to the objective. The diagram is a useful way to brainstorm, prioritize, and rank items, whether you are dealing with concrete items or abstract concepts.

The what’s on your radar template helps with:

• Uncovering what individuals are thinking
• Understanding what users prioritize
• Identifying and challenging assumptions
• Clarifying next steps and action items

How to use the What’s on Your Radar template

Step 1: Identify the core topic

Identify the primary topic for consideration and add to the textbox above the radar.

Step 2: Label the sections in the radar

We recommend using the labels: primary, secondary, and tertiary. However, based on your organization or team’s scoring system, different labels may be more familiar or appropriate.

Step 3: Outline the most important subtopics or label these sections to suit the activity

Tailor the topics around the radar to your situation. These topics may be subsections of the core topic, or just be additive labels for the workshop. For instance, some teams label them with specific workstreams or team member names when prioritizing tasks for a project.

Step 4: Add sticky notes to the radar

Invite participants to document their personal considerations and plot them on the radar.

Step 5: Rank items by importance and organize them by subtopic

Not all sticky notes will have the same priority, so be sure to place them in the radar area so their location appropriately reflects their priority.

Step 6: Ask each participant to describe their rankings and discuss as a team

Listen carefully to each participant’s point of view and make note of what insights really get to the core of the main topic.

Tips for running a What’s on Your Radar exercise:

• Adding sticky notes to the radar area should only take about 15 minutes.
• Be sure to write in some segment labels so participants understand and agree upon the priority of each section.
• Listen closely when people describe what they did. If you’re working with users, this stream-of-thought explanation is highly valuable.
• Tailor the subtopics to your situation. Some teams label them with specific workstreams or team member names when prioritizing tasks for a project.