Configure evaluation criteria

Evaluation criteria are the scorecard reviewers fill in at each governance gate. Each gate has its own set, weighted to reflect what matters at that point: strategic fit at the first gate, financials at the second, delivery readiness at the third. Scores roll up to a weighted total out of 100 on every review.

The built-in defaults

You do not have to configure anything to start reviewing. Each gate ships with a 12-item default scorecard: Proposal Review focuses on strategic alignment, impact, and sponsorship; Business Case Review on ROI, cost-benefit analysis, and risk mitigation; Plan Review on scope clarity, timeline realism, and dependencies. As long as your organization has no custom criteria for a gate, reviewers score against these defaults automatically.

Customize a gate’s criteria

1. Open Organization Settings, go to the Governance tab, then the Evaluation Criteria section.

2. Pick the gate to edit: Proposal Review, Business Case Review, or Plan Review.

3. If the gate is still on defaults, you will see a notice that reads “Using default criteria” with a Customize button. Selecting it copies the defaults into your organization’s own editable set; the defaults themselves are never modified.

4. Edit, remove, or add criteria. Each criterion has a name, a description shown to reviewers, a weight, and a scoring shape: a point score with a maximum you choose, a yes/no check, a 1 to 5 rating or scale, a dropdown where each option carries a point value, or a free-text field for written commentary.

How weights work

Each reviewer’s score on a criterion is normalized against that criterion’s maximum, multiplied by its weight, and the weighted results are combined into a single score out of 100. A criterion with weight 1.5 moves the total half again as much as one with weight 1.0. Text criteria carry no points and are excluded from the math entirely, so you can ask for written concerns without distorting the score.

Tip

Give a criterion weight 0 if you want reviewers to score it for the record without it influencing the total. The default scorecards use this for their free-text “concerns” entries.

Who can manage criteria

Creating, editing, and deleting criteria requires the governance manage permission, which is Owner and Admin by default. Portfolio Managers can conduct reviews against the criteria but cannot change them, unless an owner grants the manage permission to that role in the permission matrix.

FAQs

Can I delete a criterion that has already been used? No. A criterion that has scores recorded against it cannot be deleted, so past reviews stay auditable. Remove it from future use by deleting it only while unused, or simply stop weighting it.

Do changes affect reviews already submitted? No. A submitted review keeps the criteria and scores it was recorded with. New reviews at the gate use the current set.

Can different gates share criteria? Each gate’s set is independent. If you want the same criterion at two gates, add it to both; that also lets you weight it differently per gate.