The Wheel of Death is a handy and simple tool to help prioritise issues and where to spend time fixing things.

I learned it from the domain of customer service. It's used something like this:

Keep track of customer issues that you encounter each week by tagging them.

At the end of the week, tally up the responses and produce the Wheel of Death to see the highest volume of questions or issues taking up the team's time.

Use the Wheel as part of a conversation about where the company should focus to improve the experience and save time for the team and customers.

The proportion of issues is only part of the story, and other factors like how critical the issue is, how much time it takes to resolve it, and how much work it is to make it go away will all be part of the decision.

I learned it from working with a talented head of customer experience as we worked on fixing support issues, though don't confine its use to that. I find "the Wheel of Death" a name that sticks with me, but it could also be called the Wheel of Fortune. If you focus on the Wheel for a spell, it's hard for things not to improve.

Worth bearing in mind that in its form as a pie chart, you'll need to combine it with volume or time metrics, or it can look like you're not making progress.

I revised this sketch slightly from the original

The Wheel of Death

While both are excellent starts to an evening, it's easy to mix up a bellini with a blini, if only because you might mishear one for the other.

What's the difference between a bellini and a blini?

A bellini is a refreshing cocktail made with peach nectar and prosecco. A blini is typically a bite-size pancake often served with smoked salmon or caviar due to its Russian origins. Both are delicious in very different ways and yet sound almost exactly the same (like a homophone).

The good news is that at a noisy party, even if you can't quite make out whether someone is offering you a bellini or a blini, the safe answer is always yes.

In Russia, I am told, blini tend to be thinner, pan-sized pancakes rather than the topped, cocktail party style, thicker but mini pancakes  they have evolved to in Western cooking.

Bellini — blini

Chickens and pigs is a metaphor for who's got skin in the game. Or to leave metaphors behind, who's involved in a project vs who is fully committed.

Also known as the bacon and eggs principle, it's from the old joke (sometimes told as a short story), "In a bacon and eggs breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed."

Many people may be interested in and share their opinions on a project or decision. But only some will be responsible for delivering the project and directly accountable for its success.

Everyone may be interested in a bet, but only some players have money to lose.

The chickens and pigs metaphor used to be part of the scrum guide for developing software but was removed. While it memorably distinguishes accountability in a project, there's a danger that it alienates or diminishes valuable input that might make a project successful.

For a more conventional grouping of stakeholders in a project, see RACI

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Chickens and pigs