Organizations routinely use weights or priorities to reflect the relative importance of different work items. While Cascade typically calculates an Objective's progress based on the completion of its associated Success Criteria, the default method assigns an equal weight to every criterion.
There might be cases where certain success criteria may weigh more than the others, thereby defining the progress of an objective. To ensure your Objectives accurately reflect progress, you can enable and customize weighting options at the Objective level.
Weighting Options
When defining an Objective, you can choose from the following weighting methods:
-
Evenly Weighted - This is the standard setting, where all associated Success Criteria contribute equally to the Objective's progress calculation.
-
Weighted by measures - Only measures will be included in the Objective's progress calculation.
-
Weighted by actions - Only actions will be included in the Objective's progress calculation.
-
Weighted by objectives - Only contributing objectives, projects, nested objectives will be included in the Objective's progress calculation.
-
Custom weighted - choosing which success criteria contributes to the Objective's progress or directly inputing the value of weight.
Go to the relevant objective's sidebar, and in the Success criteria tab, you can adjust weighting. 
Weighted by all success criteria evenly:
This is the default option - when you add contributing objectives, measures and actions under an objective, the weighting defaults to "weighted by all criteria evenly". The progress is calculated by the average of all the associated success criteria.
Let's consider this objective that has:
|
Success criteria |
Progress (in %) |
|---|---|
|
Contributing or Nested objective 1 |
20 |
|
Measure 1 |
10 |
|
Measure 3 |
35 |
|
Action 1 |
25 |
|
Action 2 |
25 |
|
Project 1 |
30 |
When all are weighted evenly, the progress is calculated as (20+10+35+25+25+30)/6 = 24.2% will be progress of the objective. And, this'll be rounded off as 24% on display.
Weighted by measures:
Use this option if you wish to define the progress of your objective based only on the "measures" associated with it.
Depending on what measures you choose, only those will be considered for weighing the progress of the objective. The number of measures chosen for weighting vs the total number of measures is displayed against the Weighting label.The actions, projects, and nested or contributing objectives will not be considered.
Let's consider this objective that has:
|
Success criteria |
Progress (in %) |
|---|---|
|
Measure 1 |
20 |
|
Measure 2 |
10 (Not weighted) |
|
Measure 3 |
35 |
|
Action 1 |
25 |
|
Action 2 |
25 |
|
Project 1 |
30 |
|
Contributing or Nested objective 1 |
10 |
We're considering only the Measure 1 and Measure 3 for weighting, so in this case, the progress is calculated as (20+35)/2 = 27.5% will be progress of the objective (rounded off as 28% on display). If we include all the measures, then the progress will be (20+10+35)/3 = 21.7% (rounded off as 22% on display).
Weighted by actions:
Use this option if you wish to define the progress of your objective based only on the "actions" associated with it. When you choose this option, you'll see the Not weighted toggle button only in the actions tiles. You can toggle it to include or exclude them from the weighting.
Depending on what actions you choose, only those will be considered for weighing the progress of the objective. The number of actions chosen for weighting vs the total number of actions is displayed against the Weighting label. The measures and nested or contributing objectives will not be considered.
Let's consider this objective that has:
|
Success criteria |
Progress (in %) |
|---|---|
|
Contributing or Nested objective 1 |
20 |
|
Measure 1 |
10 |
|
Measure 2 |
35 |
|
Action 1 |
25 (Not weighted) |
|
Action 2 |
25 |
|
Action 3 |
30 |
We're considering only the Action 2 and 3 for weighting, so in this case, the progress is calculated as (25+30)/2 = 27.5% will be progress of the objective (rounded off as 28% on display). If we include all the actions, then the progress will be (25+25+30)/3 = 26.7% (rounded off as 27% on display).
Weighted by objectives:
Use this option if you wish to define the progress of your objective based only on the "nested and contributing objectives" associated with it.
Depending on what contributing and nested objectives you choose, only those will be considered for weighing the progress of the parent objective. The number of contributing and nested objectives chosen for weighting vs the total number of contributing and nested objectives is displayed against the Weighting label. The measures and actions will not be considered.
Let's consider this objective that has:
|
Success criteria |
Progress (in %) |
|---|---|
|
Nested objective 1 |
25 |
|
Contributing objective 1 |
15 (Not weighted) |
|
Contributing objective 2 |
30 |
|
Measure 1 |
35 |
|
Action 1 |
25 |
|
Action 2 |
25 |
|
Project 1 |
30 |
We're considering only the Nested objective 1 and Contributing objective 2 for weighting, so in this case, the progress is calculated as (25+30)/2 = 27.5% will be progress of the objective (rounded off as 28% on display). If we include all the objectives, then the progress will be (25+15+30)/3 = 23.3% (rounded off as 23% on display).
Custom weighting:
Use this option if you wish to choose a mix of objectives, measures and/or actions to be considered for the progress. Each success criteria that is toggled will contribute the same amount to the Objective's progress. When you choose this option, you'll need to toggle on from 'unweighted' to 'weighted' for those you want to include (if it is not toggled, it will be excluded them from weighting)
Let's consider this objective that has:
|
Success criteria |
Progress (in %) |
|---|---|
|
Contributing or Nested objective 1 |
20 |
|
Measure 1 |
10 (Not weighted) |
|
Measure 2 |
35 |
|
Action 1 |
25 |
|
Action 2 |
25 |
|
Action 3 |
30 (Not weighted) |
We're considering only the Contributing or Nested objective 1, Measure 2, Action 1, and Action 2 for weighting, so in this case, the progress is calculated as (20+35+25+25)/4 = 26.3% will be progress of the objective (rounded off as 26% on display). If we include all the success criteria, then the progress will be (20+10+35+25+25+30)/6 = 24.2% (rounded off as 24% on display). (Same as weighted by all criteria evenly)
Custom Arbitrary weighting:
Custom Arbitrary Weighting is an extension of custom weighting which allows you to precisely define the numerical impact of each success criteria toward your Objective's progress. Select custom weighted and then toggle the success criteria you wish to include. From here, simply enter a numerical value for each item. Cascade will then proportionally scale all your inputs (from any scale you use, such as 1-5 or 1-100) to calculate the Objective's overall progress.
Note that the number you input reflects the scaled proportion. For example, if you had four measures and entered in 33 for all four, the true percent it would equate to is 25% toward the health/progress calculation. The same result would be if you used a 1-5 scale system, and entered in a 1 for all four measures.
Let's consider this objective that is using a 1-5 scale system and has:
|
Success criteria |
Progress (in %) |
Scale (1-5) |
|---|---|---|
|
Contributing objective 1 |
20 |
2 |
|
Nested objective 1 |
20 |
4 |
|
Measure 1 |
20 |
2 |
|
Measure 2 |
35 |
1 |
|
Measure 3 |
10 |
4 |
|
Action 1 |
25 |
3 |
|
Action 2 |
25 |
1 |
|
Action 3 |
30 |
5 |
When:
-
all the objectives (contributing and nested) are chosen, the calculation is ((2*20)+(4*20))/(2+4) = 20% will be the progress of the objective.
-
all the measures are chosen, the calculation is ((2*20)+(4*10)+(1*35))/(2+4+1) = 16.4% will be the progress of the objective (rounded off as 16% on display).
-
all the actions are chosen, then the calculation is ((3*25)+(1*25)+(5*30))/(3+1+5) = 26.7% will be the progress of the objective (rounded off as 27% on display).
-
all the success criteria are included, depending on the progress and the weights assigned to the success criteria, the progress of the objective is calculated. The calculation is ((2*20)+(4*20)+(2*20)+(1*35)+(4*10)+(3*25)+(1*25)+(5*30))/(2+4+2+1+4+3+1+5) = 22.0% will be the progress of the objective
And based on this progress and the due dates, the health of the objective is determined.
FAQs
Why do I see no progress/ a blurred progress bar with no health on the Objective?
If you are using any weighting option (except for evenly weighted), you must select a success criteria (by toggling the weighted button), so it is included in the progress in the objective.
Depending on the weight type, you can choose to weigh the objective just by all objectives (contributing and nested), or measures, or actions. Based on what is toggled, the progress of the objective is calculated.
Who can add weights to the success criteria?
Anyone who has an edit permission to the plans in which the objectives reside can add weights. The audit log of when and by who the weights were added or changed can be seen from the relevant objective's Goal hub > Activity tab. Scaled weighting is available only for "Essentials and Enterprise+" tiers.
If we add a new success criteria, how'll that affect the weighting?
If you've chosen the weighting as "by all criteria evenly", then it would automatically be added and the progress of the objective will change accordingly. However, if you've enabled weighting by measures only, or actions and projects only, or custom weighting, then you need to manually toggle the Weighted switch to include or exclude it for weighing.
I have success criteria defined in the Objectives with updated progress and health, but in the Objective, I see "Tracking or weighting have not been defined on success criteria".
This would be because of weighting enabled in those objectives. Except for weighted by all success criteria evenly, while you're choosing weighting by measures, or by actions and projects, or by objectives, you need to manually toggle the Not weighted option on to include them for progress calculation. Once you toggle the weighted option on the relevant entity, the objective will show the progress and health.
If we delete a success criteria that is included in the progress of the objective, what will happen?
The progress of the objective will be re-calculated based on the success criteria that is available and is contributing to the objective's progress.
Does weighting affect the health calculation?
Yes. The progress and the health will be updated by any change made to a success criteria related with progress or weighting.
What if I use custom arbitrary weighting and it doesn't add up to 100%?
We don't enforce the weighting adding up to 100%. It can add up to any number necessary. The values entered proportionally scale no matter what you put in.