Decision making wheels seem to be all the rage lately
However, not all decision making wheels are created equal.
In this post, I’ll introduce some of the common types of decision-making wheels, when they may be useful, and where you may as well just flip a coin!
And, yes, I have taken it upon myself to name these wheels since no one else seemed to want to!
the “leaving-it-in-the-hands-of-the-gods” decision making wheel
If you search for decision-making wheel on either Bing or Google, the first page of results will be a device that is more like flipping a coin than any kind of intentional decision-making.
Imagine a pie chart with each slice of the pie being a different option. For a somewhat ridiculous example, imagine I am trying to decide whether to go to war, concede or negotiate with a neighbouring state.
I would place each of these options on each slice of the pie. And then, I would give the wheel a spin. Whichever option the wheel stops on, that’s the option I go with.
An example of a “leave-it-in-the-hands-of-the-gods” decision-making wheel
when to use a “leaving-it-in-the-hands-of-the-gods” decision making wheel
I possibly lost a bunch of people to pickerwheel.com with that image. If you’re still reading, congratulations, you’re about to level up your decision making ability.
While it might feel ridiculous to use such a device for making such a high impact decision, and I have given it a bit of a satirical name, this decision making wheel has important limitations.
- For low impact choices like “where should I eat tonight?”, it can be a fun way to decide to save your limited decision-making resources for more high impact decisions.
when not to use the “leaving-it-in-the-hands-of-the-gods” decision making wheel
- Using such a device for such a high impact choice as in the initial example of whether to negotiate or go to war probably feels intuitively ridiculous. Why? Because we’re placing a decision of such high impact and low reversibility to chance. While this wheel might look fancier than flipping a coin or rolling a handful of dice, the mechanism is the same: random chance.
- Calling this a decision-making wheel gives it more authority than it deserves and can possibly lull the user into a false sense of security.
Given their limited usage, it may not be immediately clear why these decision-making wheels are so popular, especially after exploring the other variations below. I’ll explore the popularity of deferring to random chance in a later exploration of decision fatigue.
For now, I’d relegate leave-it-in-the-hands-of-the-gods decision-making wheels for trivial decisions. Or maybe I’d stop fooling myself and flip a coin!
the “higher-order-effects” decision-making wheel
Another type of decision-making wheel aims to represent higher order effects or consequences in the shape of a wheel.
An example of a “higher order effects” decision making wheel. Image courtesy of Upstream’s video
In this example, the user can, at a glance, see a given birth control method’s mechanism (hormonal or non-hormonal), visibility (visible or hidden), it’s effectiveness it preventing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and the overall effectiveness in preventing pregnancy.
That’s a lot of information for a simple glance. So, when are these decision making wheels most useful?
when to use the “higher order effects” decision-making wheel
- these wheels are highly scalable. For example, you can design them once and then use them many times. The wheel above could be designed and distributed across many classrooms to educate students on different types of birth control and their consequences.
- when faced with a decision that is often avoided, the different colours and the tactile nature of this decision making wheel can provide a concrete interface to interact with an otherwise intimidating decision.
when not to use the “higher order effects” decision-making wheel
- these wheels likely take a significant amount of time to design and manufacture. This time could be better spent into applying other lenses or decision-making tools. I find it more efficient to explore higher order effects in a table (see the excerpt below taken from From Dilemmas to Decisions)
- the time taken in designing these wheels may be used as a means of procrastinating on finalising to the decision.
In short, this decision-making wheel has its uses in educating at scale. However, for one-off decisions, there are likely more effective tools for traversing the decision making landscape.
the “visualisation-of-the-process” decision-making wheel
The final type of decision-making wheel I’ll present is probably the most universally useful: the “visualisation of the process” decision making wheel.
This is the process of the Decision Expedition which I use to model the decision making process in From Dilemmas to Decisions. That aside, let’s go into why and when it’s useful.
when to use the “visualisation of the process decision-making wheel”
- if you make decisions infrequently or need a quick reminder of the process.
- when the decision is high impact and low reversibility. Generally, with these decisions, the greater the benefits of the slower, deliberative process. If the decision doesn’t lead to the outcome you want, the process will allow you to learn from any blindspots or deficiencies in the process to get you closer to your goal next time.
when not to use the “visualisation of the process decision-making wheel”
- some decisions don’t require as much deliberation as others. Following on from the point above, for decisions that are low impact and high reversibility, deliberation provides diminishing returns. For example, do you really need to give much thought to decide what pizza to get for dinner tonight? That’s unlikely.
Which may then lead you to question: “how do I know when to use a decision-making process and when to just go with my gut?”
In From Dilemmas to Decisions, I show you how to use a simple 2×2 matrix with some real world examples. But here’s a taste from the Q&A at my book launch.
a wheel for every journey
In this post, I have presented three different decision-making wheels:
- the “leave it in the hands of the gods” decision-making wheel. Judging by web search results, this seems to be the most popular decision-making wheel. Though users of this wheel need to beware that it is essentially leaving the decision up to chance.
- the “higher order effects” decision-making wheel attempts to show, at a glance, the second and third order consequences of a decision. This wheel can be useful in cases where the wheel can be reused but requires a significant amount of preparation and this effort could be otherwise invested in getting clear on the options ahead.
- finally, the “visualising the process” decision making wheel represents the cyclic nature of an effective decision-making process where previous decisions improve on later decisions. This wheel is beneficial when deliberating on high impact and low reversibility decisions or when a reminder of the elements of the process are needed.
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