Despite what Google Search results may suggest, RAG+B is not shorthand for a fashion brand or a band. Instead, it’s an extension of the RAG rating system.
A basic summary of that article is that RAG ratings are a popular project management method of rating for issues or status reports, based on Red, Amber (yellow), and Green. RAG ratings are based on traffic lights and serve as a good strategy to visually mark various items.
Traffic lights provide great variable insight for a RAG rating system by using 3 status types. It’s why the system has been widely adopted in information dashboard design. The system is easy to comprehend. Therefore, it offers designers established guidelines for grouping data visually.
“Gathering Blue” for RAG Ratings
So, what color should we use for the RAG rating addition? By reading the title, you already found out what we decided to improve RAG ratings, but we still need to explain our reasoning. After all, how does blue fit into the pre-existing pattern of the traffic light that everyone is familiar with?
When working with a complex system (like Weekdone), 3 status accounts don’t always cut it. The need for expanding the original RAG rating came to us while we were updating the OKR features of our product. The long and short of it is that an Objective can have 3 major statuses when a quarter has ended: off track (red), at-risk(amber), and on track(green).
However, Weekdone calculates and scores these variables automatically. This system is based on completion and the time that has passed since the beginning of a quarter, taking the guesswork and overestimation out of the process.
By enabling this, we needed another variable to showcase over-achievers who have exceeded the expectations of their OKRs. By having another color in the RAG rating to visually represent where a goal stands, the automatic calculations help you position where you are when you’re excelling.
It’s quite simple. By adding blue, RAG ratings retain their integrity and readability as a whole, preventing the user from having to use an entirely different visual system.
We also didn’t want to use the original websafe colors for the RAG+B system. After all, not only does the text become more difficult to read, but we wanted something that still fit in with the way Weekdone’s RAG ratings look aesthetically. You know, something a bit less harsh to look at.
You can use the extended RAG+B system not only for classifying OKRs, but for any set of items where the original RAG ratings didn’t suffice. Here are some examples:
| R | low | bad | Red | Off track |
| A | medium | ok | Amber | At risk |
| G | high | good | Green | On track |
| B | extra | super | Blue | Exceed |
For a view on how this looks in Weekdone, consult the following resource:
5 Point Ratings
Team and employee dashboards are both equally important for employees and managers alike, so we’d like to take a moment to expand on what is possible outside of the RAG system. The RAG+B system immediately showcases how everyone is performing. It lets you know who is doing well and others that may be lagging behind. The best thing is that, unlike some analytics dashboards, everything in Weekdone is meant for individual and the team uses simultaneously with unified visual cues for everyone.
2 additional resources you may want to consult outside of RAG+B are:
- Additional 5-point scale rating questions.
- The revamped dashboard with better history graphics
New 5 point questions to ask your team weekly
Weekdone users enjoy having the option to report their overall job satisfaction on a weekly basis. This has been a great way to know where your team’s morale is at in a way that requires very little effort on both sides. So, whenever you see a 1 to 3-star rating instead of the positive 4 or 5 stars, you know, as a leader, that you should talk to them and find out what’s wrong. It serves as yet another function to immediately see where everyone is at.
You can also ask alternative 5-star based questions to make visualizing where people are at even easier. Just head to your company template settings. At the bottom there, after the Happiness question, you’ll find the link “Add a new 5-point rating scale question.” Click it, add the text to be asked and choose an icon to be used for answering. You can also click and drag to order the questions.
Just like that the new questions appear on everyone’s form:
Analyze OKR Progress with RAG+B
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