A funnel is a cone-shaped tube that is wide at one end and narrow at the other, used to guide liquid or powder into a small opening.
You could see a funnel as a sort of intentional bottleneck, slowing a flow so it can fit into a small opening. For example, you might create merge lanes to funnel highway traffic from four lanes down to two.
The funnel is a useful metaphor for any process or workflow that takes a large number of inputs and narrows them down into a small number of outputs.
Sheep farmers use a fence shaped like a funnel to move a herd of sheep from a pen into a single-file chute, so they can be sorted, vaccinated, marked and so on.
In business, sales and marketing teams use funnels to narrow down general traffic, like web visitors, to the people who are most likely to buy or become loyal customers. A sales or marketing funnel typically uses meaningful criteria to move people from one stage to another along the funnel. This funneling process helps teams focus their energy and efforts where they are most likely to drive meaningful results.
Do you have a large quantity of people or things that need to be narrowed down, so you can focus your attention on what matters? Could a funnel help you qualify and sort them into meaningful categories?
See also: Bottleneck, Black hole.
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