Species Working Groups can use the Wheel to assess how far a species has progressed across the key components of recovery and to visualize where recovery efforts can be focused next. The criteria in each segment represent key recovery activities ranging from understanding vulnerabilities and limiting factors to developing recovery plans, building partnerships, and carrying out management and monitoring. Moving through these steps guides teams as they document activities that are underway, have been completed, or will become future priorities.

The Wheel is designed to track species recovery progress and to provide practical guidance in the integration of efforts across biological and human dimensions. Although the Wheel is designed to be progressive, every species and working group is unique, and a team may indeed find that its assessment may not always populate the Wheel sequentially. Working groups can use the completed Wheel for a variety of purposes, including team and recovery organization, tracking recovery progress, strengthening grant proposals, as a gap analysis, or for strategic planning. The Wheel is not intended to score, rank, or otherwise assess the working group itself; rather, it is designed to facilitate shared understanding, coordination, and decision making.