Add Weights to define the Progress of your Objectives

It's common for organizations to have tied "priorities" or "weights" for their work in order to easily see what is most important. By now, you know that the objectives' progress is calculated from the progress of all of its associated success criteria. This results in an equal weighting of all success criteria, which may not accurately reflect the importance of each success criterion to the overall objective. 

There might be cases where certain success criteria may weigh more than the others, thereby defining the progress of an objective. To provide more granular control over which success criteria contributes towards the progress, we've enabled "weighting" option at the objective level. These can be:

• All success criteria weighted evenly (this is usually how the progress is calculated for objectives)

• Weighted only by measures

• Weighted only by actions and projects

• Weighted only by objectives

• Custom weighting - choosing which success criteria contributes to the objective's progress.

Anyone with edit permissions on a plan in which the objective resides can define weighting - Go to the relevant objective's sidebar, and in the Success criteria tab, you can add weighting. 

You can see the audit log of who added or changed the weights and when from the objective's Goal hub > Activity tab.

Weighted by all success criteria evenly:

This is the default option - when you add contributing objectives, measures, projects and actions under an objective, the weighting defaults to "weighted by all criteria evenly". This is the usual way of how the progress is calculated for objectives. 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. When you choose this option, you'll see the Not weighted toggle button only in the measure tiles. You can toggle it to include or exclude them from the weighting.

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 and projects:

Use this option if you wish to define the progress of your objective based only on the "actions and projects" associated with it. When you choose this option, you'll see the Not weighted toggle button only in the actions and project tiles. You can toggle it to include or exclude them from the weighting.

Depending on what actions and projects you choose, only those will be considered for weighing the progress of the objective. The number of actions and projects chosen for weighting vs the total number of actions and projects 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
Project 1	30

We're considering only the Action 2 and Project 1 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 and projects, 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. When you choose this option, you'll see the Not weighted toggle button only in the nested and contributing objectives' tiles. You can toggle it to include or exclude them from the weighting.

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, actions and projects 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 the relevant success criteria of your choice to define the progress of the objective. When you choose this option, you'll see the Not weighted toggle button against all the objectives (nested and contributing), measures, actions, and projects tiles. You can toggle it to include or exclude them from weighting.

Depending on what success criteria you choose, only those will be considered for weighing the progress of the objective. The number of success criteria chosen for weighting vs the total number of success criteria is displayed against the Weighting label. The success criteria that're not chosen will not be considered.

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
Project 1	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)

Scaled weighting - "Essentials and Enterprise+ tier" only:

For large organizations, we've the option of scaled weighting - on a scale of 1 to 5, you can weigh the success criteria, and based on the scale that you choose, the weightage differs, and thereby the progress of the associated objective. Greater the number in the scale, more is the weightage.

Having a scaled interpretation instead of percentages reduce the noise, complexity, and cognitive load, and provides more consistency and ease of interpretations.

You can choose to weigh the objective just by all objectives (contributing and nested), or measures, or actions and projects, or customize them entirely, and when you toggle the Weighted button, you can choose the scale that you wish to give them. Based on the scale that you choose, the progress of the objective is calculated by the weighted average of the relevant success criteria.

Let's consider this objective that 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
Project 1	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 and projects are only 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

I've weights in percentages, how do I add those?

We recommend you to use the scaled approach for the ease of interpretation. Using percentages increases the noise and complexity.

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.

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.

In case of Essentials and Enterprise+ tiers, you need to manually set the scale to define the weighting and progress calculation.

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.

What happens when we downgrade from paid to free tier?

The scale will automatically default to 1 for all the success criteria (i.e., equal distribution of weights) and the progress of the objective will be calculated the usual way.

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 this weighted feature 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.

If a status of the action or project is changed to "Wont do", will it be implied to the objective's progress?

Though we've not tied weighting to the status, in this case, you can choose "custom weighting", and exclude that action or project.