You're tracking dozens of trends. Your team shares articles in Slack. Someone mentions a conference keynote. Another colleague flags a competitor move. But when leadership asks "what's actually changing in our industry?"—you're left scrambling to synthesise scattered observations into something coherent.
A trend radar solves this problem. It's a structured visualisation that maps trends by relevance and timing, giving strategy teams a shared view of what matters and when to act.
This guide walks you through building a trend radar from scratch—from gathering signals to creating a visual output your stakeholders can actually use. I'll share the methodology I've refined through years of strategic foresight work, along with practical examples you can adapt to your context.
A trend radar is a visual framework that plots trends across two dimensions: proximity (how soon will this affect us?) and relevance (how significantly could it impact our strategy?). The result looks like a radar screen, with trends positioned in concentric rings radiating from a centre point.
The centre represents "now"—trends requiring immediate attention. Outer rings represent longer time horizons: emerging developments worth monitoring but not yet demanding action.
Unlike a simple trend list, a radar communicates strategic priority at a glance. It answers three questions simultaneously: What trends are we tracking? How urgent is each one? How do they relate to each other?
Think of it as the difference between a grocery list and a meal plan. Both contain the same items, but one tells you what to do with them.
A trend radar differs from a trend report (which provides depth on individual trends) and a trend taxonomy (which classifies trends by category). The radar is specifically a prioritisation and communication tool—it helps teams decide where to focus and when.
Without a trend radar, strategic planning often suffers from two failure modes.
The first is trend overload. Teams collect signals and observations without a framework for synthesis. Everything seems important. Nothing gets prioritised. The result is either analysis paralysis or random attention—whichever trend got mentioned most recently gets focus.
The second is blind spots. Without systematic tracking, teams miss slow-moving but significant shifts until they've already reshaped the competitive landscape. By then, strategic options have narrowed.
A well-built trend radar addresses both problems:
It forces prioritisation. Placing trends on a radar requires explicit judgment about timing and impact. This surfaces disagreements and builds alignment. It creates shared vocabulary. When leadership asks about "digital transformation," everyone references the same radar position and underlying evidence. It enables proactive strategy. Seeing trends in context helps teams prepare for convergence—when multiple trends intersect to create step-change disruption. It documents reasoning. A radar captures not just what trends you're watching, but why you positioned them where you did.
For consultants, a trend radar is also a powerful deliverable. It communicates strategic intelligence in a format clients can immediately use and share.
Building an effective trend radar involves six phases. I'll walk through each with practical guidance.
Before collecting a single signal, clarify what your radar is for.
Determine the domain. Are you scanning across your entire industry, or focusing on a specific function (marketing, operations, talent)? A radar covering "the future of healthcare" will look very different from one examining "the future of hospital supply chains."
Identify the time horizon. Most radars work across 1-5 years, with rings representing: Core (0-12 months): Active now, requires response Near (1-2 years): Building momentum, planning needed Horizon (3-5 years): Emerging, worth monitoring
Name your strategic questions. What decisions will this radar inform? Examples: "Where should we invest R&D over the next three years?" "What workforce capabilities will we need by 2027?"
This scoping prevents the common trap of building a radar that's interesting but not actionable.
Signals are the raw material for trends. They're individual observations—a new regulation, a startup launch, a behavioural shift, a technology breakthrough.
Diversify your sources. Combine: Industry publications and analyst reports Patent filings and academic research Startup funding announcements Social media and community discussions Customer feedback and frontline observations Conference presentations and expert interviews
Cast a wide net initially. At this stage, you're not filtering—you're collecting. Aim for breadth. Include signals that seem tangential; sometimes the most important trends emerge from unexpected intersections.
Document context. For each signal, capture: What happened? When? Source credibility Initial relevance assessment
A structured signal library makes the next phase dramatically easier. Rather than searching through bookmarks and email threads, you have a searchable repository of evidence.
This is where analysis happens. You're looking for patterns—signals that share underlying drivers or point toward common futures.
Group by theme, not source. A regulation change, a startup pivot, and a consumer behaviour shift might all be signals of the same underlying trend (e.g., "demand for sustainability transparency").
Name trends actionably. Avoid vague labels like "digitalisation" or "changing demographics." Instead, name the specific change: "Shift to subscription-based ownership models" or "Acceleration of remote-first hiring."
Validate with evidence. Each trend should be supported by multiple signals from independent sources. A trend based on a single data point is just a signal—it needs corroboration.
Identify drivers. What's causing this trend? Understanding drivers helps assess durability. Trends driven by demographic shifts behave differently from those driven by regulatory changes.
For more detailed guidance on this phase, see Trend Clustering Techniques (With Examples).
Now you're positioning trends on the radar. This requires two assessments:
Impact assessment. For each trend, evaluate: Opportunities: What new possibilities does this create? Risks: What threats does it pose to current strategy? Uncertainties: What don't we know?
Use a simple scale (High/Medium/Low) or a more nuanced scoring system. The goal is relative ranking, not false precision.
Timing assessment. Estimate when this trend will meaningfully affect your organisation: Already affecting operations → Core ring Will affect strategy within 1-2 years → Near ring Emerging, timeline uncertain → Horizon ring
Consider convergence. Some trends accelerate when they combine. Electric vehicles + autonomous driving + ride-sharing = a very different mobility landscape than any trend alone suggests. Note these intersections.
For a detailed framework on impact assessment, see How to Evaluate Trend Impact (Opportunities, Risks, Uncertainties).
With trends positioned, create the visual output.
Structure your radar. The classic format uses: Concentric circles for time horizons Sectors for thematic categories (e.g., Technology, Society, Economy, Environment) Dots or icons for individual trends Colour coding for impact level or trend type
Keep it scannable. A radar with 50 trends defeats its purpose. Aim for 15-25 trends maximum. If you have more, create sector-specific radars or consolidate related trends.
Include a legend. Explain what positioning means, what colours indicate, and how to interpret the visual.
Add supporting detail. The radar itself is a summary. Link each trend to deeper analysis—signal evidence, impact assessments, and strategic implications.
A trend radar isn't a one-time deliverable. It's a living tool.
Share strategically. Present the radar to stakeholders with context. Walk through your methodology, highlight key trends, and explain positioning rationale. The conversation often matters as much as the visual.
Schedule reviews. Quarterly reviews keep the radar current. New signals emerge. Trends accelerate or stall. Positions need updating.
Connect to decisions. Reference the radar in strategic planning sessions. When evaluating options, ask: "How does this perform against our core and near-horizon trends?"
Document changes. Track how trends move over time. A trend that jumped from Horizon to Core in six months tells you something important about the pace of change.
A retail strategy team built a trend radar focused on "the future of consumer experience." They organised sectors around Customer Behaviour, Technology, Competitors, and Regulation.
Their radar revealed that three near-horizon trends—social commerce, AI-powered personalisation, and privacy regulation—were converging. Individually, each seemed manageable. Together, they demanded a fundamental rethink of their customer data strategy. The radar made this intersection visible.
A management consultant used a trend radar as a discovery tool with a manufacturing client. Rather than presenting pre-packaged trends, they facilitated a workshop where the client team positioned trends based on their own knowledge.
The exercise revealed significant disagreement about timing—some executives saw automation as a near-horizon opportunity, while operations leaders placed it firmly in the core ring. This disagreement, surfaced by the radar format, became the foundation for productive strategy dialogue.
A corporate strategy function integrated trend radar updates into their annual planning cycle. Each business unit contributed signals; the central team clustered and validated trends; leadership reviewed the radar before setting strategic priorities.
Over three years, this rhythm improved strategic consistency across units and reduced the "surprise factor" when external changes affected the business.
Start with a specific decision. Radars built to inform concrete choices are more useful than general environmental scans. Know what question you're answering.
Involve diverse perspectives. The best radars combine expert analysis with frontline observation. Include voices from different functions, geographies, and experience levels.
Embrace disagreement. When team members position the same trend differently, investigate why. Different mental models or information often explain the gap—both are valuable.
Avoid false precision. Trend timing is inherently uncertain. Three rings (core/near/horizon) often work better than five. More granularity suggests more certainty than you actually have.
Update before you need to. A stale radar is worse than no radar—it creates false confidence. Build update rhythms into your process.
Connect to your trend taxonomy. If you've developed categories for classifying trends, use them as radar sectors for consistency. See Trend Taxonomies: Classifying Change Effectively for guidance.
Building a trend radar draws on several connected skills and frameworks. Explore these related resources:
Signals vs Trends: A Modern Foresight Framework — Understand the foundational distinction between raw signals and validated trends before building your radar.
How to Develop Trends from Signals: A Step-by-Step Process — Detailed methodology for the signal-to-trend analysis that feeds radar construction.
Trend Clustering Techniques (With Examples) — Practical methods for grouping signals into coherent trends.
How to Evaluate Trend Impact (Opportunities, Risks, Uncertainties) — Framework for assessing trend implications and positioning them accurately.
Trend Taxonomies: Classifying Change Effectively — Approaches for categorising trends that inform radar sector design.
For broader context on integrating trend work into strategy, see the parent guide: Signals, Trends & Strategic Intelligence: Making Sense of Change.
Building your first trend radar is simpler than it might seem. Start small:
Choose one strategic question your radar will address Spend an hour collecting 20-30 signals from diverse sources Group them into 5-10 candidate trends Position them on a simple three-ring radar Share with colleagues and iterate based on their input
In Portage, I've built this workflow into the Trend Reports feature. You can collect signals, cluster them with AI assistance, and generate a visual trend radar automatically. The process that once took weeks now takes hours—without sacrificing analytical rigour.
Generate your first Trend Radar →
A trend radar is a prioritisation tool that plots trends by timing and relevance, making strategic priorities visible at a glance. Effective radars start with clear scope—define your domain, time horizon, and strategic questions before collecting signals. Systematic signal gathering and rigorous clustering are the analytical foundation; the visual is just the output. Impact and timing assessments require judgment; embrace disagreement as a source of insight rather than a problem to resolve. Radars are living tools—schedule regular updates and connect them explicitly to strategic decisions. Start simple with a focused question and 15-25 trends; expand scope as you build capability.