Participant Roles

The Participant Roles page consists of:

1. The For Alternatives/For Objectives tabs to assign roles for alternatives and for objectives respectively.
2. The Participants/Groups tabs toggle between the participant's list and the group's list of the model.
3. The first column of the grid displays the Alternatives list.
4. The grid headings (next to the Alternatives) display the Hierarchy of Objectives. 
5. The intersecting cells were to assign roles for evaluating the alternative (row) with respect to covering objectives (column). 
6. Toolbar options. 

Roles can be set for:

• The "All Participants Group" (every participant belongs to "All Participants")
• Any Defined Participant Groups (non-dynamic and dynamic groups) 
• Each individual Participant Roles

How Roles are processed -- Three rules: 

1. A role explicitly assigned for a participant OVERRIDES any role defined for:
   • The "All Participants Group"
   • Any defined groups to which the participant belongs
2.  Roles for the "All Participants Group" and any Defined Groups have the same priority
3.  A restrict role overrides an Allow role

Roles can be assigned for:

• Sub-objectives with respect to their parent Objective and
• Alternatives with respect to covering objectives

Assigning roles without groups is a simpler way of setting up roles.  Setting up roles with groups is a very flexible and powerful method but somewhat more complex.  

Roles can be assigned to Participant Groups (custom groups or a pre-defined group called "All Participants") as well as to individual participants.  The resultant role for a participant is a combination of the roles assigned to any group to which the participant belongs (including the pre-defined "All Participants" group) and any role explicitly assigned to the individual participant. 

In this topic, we will focus on Setting up roles without groups.  For the purpose of setting roles without using participant groups, all we need to know now is that a participant will have a role for every node (as defined by the "All Participants" group which by default is Allowed) unless they are explicitly restricted for one or more nodes. 

Since each participant has an implicit allow role for every node, the easiest way to set roles is to restrict nodes for which a participant should not have a role.  (There is no need to explicitly allow roles when participant groups are not being used.)

Roles for Evaluating the Objectives 

Click the "For Objectives" tab to assign roles for evaluating objectives.  Roles for evaluating the objectives are represented by the colored boxes on the non-covering objectives as below:

The headers are arranged according to the objectives hierarchy/leveling.  For example, the Goal is the top-most node and its top-level objectives are Leverage Knowledge, Improve Organizational Efficiency, and so on.

An "Allow" role for the goal node means that the participant will have the role of evaluating the top-level objectives with respect to the goal.  The allow role for an objective node means that the participant will have the role of evaluating the sub-objectives with respect to that objective.

You will notice that all of the cells in the figure above have a background of light green because, by default, the "All Participants" group has an "allow role" for everything, and we have not defined any custom groups that might have had one or more "restrict" roles.

In addition to the implicit assignment of roles based on participant groups, an explicit role can be specified for a participant (either allow or restrict).  If this is the case, there will also be an interior color for the node and the background color will appear as a border.

The "Improve Organizational Efficiency" node has an explicitly restricted role in the figure above and thus appears as a red interior with a green background or border.  Since restrict overrides allow (details of the rules are below), the participant would not have a role in evaluating the sub-objectives of "Improve Organization Efficiency" with respect to their parent (Improve Organization Efficiency).

Roles for Evaluating the Alternatives 

Click the "For Alternatives" tab to assign roles for evaluating alternatives.  Roles for evaluating the alternatives are represented by the boxes on the intersecting cells of the alternatives (row) with respect to the covering objectives (column) -- see below. 

All of the intersecting cells in the figure below have a background of green because, by default, the "All Participants" group has an "allow role" for everything.

In addition to the implicit assignment of roles based on groups, an explicit role can be specified for a participant (either allow or restrict).  If this is the case, there will also be an interior color for the cell and the background color will appear as a border.  

"AS/400 Replacements" in the figure above that has an explicit restrict role -- and is shown as a red interior with a green background or border -- when evaluating with respect to covering objective "Vendor/Partner Access." 

The  yellow interior color on the "AS/400 Replacements" represents that the participant has different explicit roles for evaluating "AS/400 Replacements" with respect to the covering objectives  -- from above, one is restricted while others are "undefined" (no interior color).  Same reason for the yellow interior color for the "Vendor/Partner Access" cell. 

Note:  If there is a blank cell, this means that the alternative doesn't contribute to the covering objective. 

How Participant Roles are Assigned?

We can assign roles explicitly while in Edit mode.  Edit mode is the mode selected by default.

To assign roles to a participant, simply check the check box to the right of the participant's name on the left pane:

You can also select multiple participants at a time for assigning roles using the Shift and Control keys.  

By successively clicking on a cell, the interior color of the cell will change to:

• dark green (indicating a role that is allowed explicitly);
• dark red (indicating a role that is restricted explicitly); or
• light green (indicating a role that is allowed implicitly, based on participant group roles).

You can click theto open the color legend. 

You can set the roles for all alternatives or objectives at once by using the:

• Allow All (explicit allow),
• Drop All (no explicit specification), or
• Restrict All (explicit restrict)

buttons, and then selectively click other nodes as desired.

For alternatives, you can also define the role for:

(1) one alternative with respect to all covering objectives; or 

(2) all the alternatives with respect to one covering objective at once, 

by clicking the box on the alternative or covering objectives names. 

The yellow interior on the alternatives names (rows) and covering objectives (columns) represents that the participant has different explicit roles for evaluating the alternative with respect to each of the covering objectives; or that the participant has different explicit roles for evaluating the covering objective given each of the alternatives.

Setting up roles with groups is a very flexible and powerful method, but somewhat more complex.

Every participant belongs to a Participant Group called "All Participants."

The All Participants group initially has an "allow" role for all cells as seen below:

You can create additional Participant Groups from the Participant page.

Similar to Setting up roles without groups, you can also assign roles to groups by clicking on the cells individually, by entire row or column, or by using the Allow/Restrict/Drop All buttons.

There are three types of roles that can be specified for groups: 

• Allow  
• Restricted
• Undefined  (Neither Allowed nor Restricted)

You can click theto open the color legend. 

The role of a participant for any node depends on:

• Roles for the "All Participants" Group
• Roles for any defined Participant Group to which the participant belongs
• Roles explicitly assigned for the participant

Each Column in the following figures represents a Case Illustrating the Above Rules

Case 1 is the default.  The result is Allow.

Case 2 is a simple way to restrict individual roles.

Case 3 is equivalent to case 1.

To use roles with groups, we recommend that you start with No Specifications for the "All Participants" group.

Cases 4 and 5 are obvious.

Case 6 shows that a restricted group specification overrides an allowed group specification (Rule 3).

Case 7 illustrates that if no roles are allowed for All Participants and Any Groups, then the Individual's role is Restricted.

Case 8 shows an Individual Participant's role overrides any group roles (Rule 1).

Case 9  An Individual's specification overrides any group specifications (Rule 1).

Cases 10 and 11 show a restricted group specification overrides an allow specification (Rule 3).

You can copy roles from one participant to another:

1. Select the participant(s) whose roles you want roles to copy
2. Click Copy Roles
3. Select the participant(s) you want to copy the roles to
4. Click Paste Roles

You can also select multiple participants to whom you want the roles to be copied. 

Edit Mode

The Edit Mode is a mode where the Project Manager can assign roles by clicking on the cells or using the Drop/Allow/Restrict All options. 

Two participants are selected in the example below.  The border of the node (in this case light green for all nodes) reflects the roles implicitly assigned to the participants based on the roles assigned to the groups they are in.  The interior represents the role, if any, explicitly assigned to the selected participants. 

To better understand what the yellow means, let's look at the roles assigned for objectives for Chief Risk Officer and Chief Engineering Officer, one at a time.  

First for Kris:  As we see below, the interior of the nodes for Kris is a light green, the same as the border, meaning that neither allow nor restrict was specified for any node for Kris (if a role had been previously specified, it has been "dropped"). Thus, Kris has a role for every objective and sub-objective based on the roles assigned to groups to which Kris belongs.

Now let's look at Steve's roles:

As can be seen above, Steve has been explicitly assigned a role for Leverage Knowledge and explicitly restricted a role for Improve Organizational Efficiency.  The explicit assignment for Leverage Knowledge doesn't have any impact since, as can be seen from the border of that node, Steve would have had that role based on the roles of the groups to which Steve belongs. However, if the role for Leverage Knowledge for one of the groups that Steve belongs is later changed to "restrict," this explicit assignment would override it since an explicit assignment for an individual overrides any group role assignments.  If that were the case, then Steve's node for Leverage Knowledge would have looked like:

Let's now turn our attention to the display when we look at the roles with both Steve and Kris selected on the first image above. 

A node is displayed as yellow  in the Edit Mode if the individual role explicitly assigned to all of the selected participants is not the same.  Leverage Knowledge is yellow because Steve has an explicit role assigned for this node, but Kris does not -- so they are not the same.  Improve Organizational Efficiency is yellow because Steve has an explicitly restricted role while Kris has no explicit role -- so again, they are not the same. 

From the example above we can see that, in the Edit mode, we can determine whether the individual roles for the selected participants are the same or different.

View Mode

As discussed above, the "Edit mode" is the mode used to assign roles.  We cannot determine whether the resulting role for all the selected participants is the same or not from this display.  The resulting roles can be determined using another mode called "View mode."

 You can switch to the View mode using the menu as shown below:

If we look at the display for the same example above for the "view mode," we would see the following:

Since both Steve and Kris have the same resulting role (allowed) for Leverage Knowledge, even though they have different explicit assignments, the node is shown as green.  The Improve Organizational Efficiency node is still yellow because one of the participants has the role and the other does not.  We would have to look at each participant individually to see which one has that role and which one does not.

Examining roles for all participants in the View mode

It is advisable to select all participants in the "View" mode to see if there are any nodes that are red, meaning that no participant has been assigned the role for that node. 

You can select multiple participants or groups at a time for assigning roles.  You can check one or more participants or groups in the left pane and then click a node on the right to allow or restrict roles for the highlighted participant.

You have the following options to select multiple participants (or groups) from the list.  These options work on Windows and Macintosh.

1. Using CTRL key
   Hold the CTRL key and click the participants or groups in the list to choose them.  Click all the items you want to select.  They don’t have to be next to each other.
   Click any item again to deselect it, e.g., if you have made a mistake.  Remember to keep the CTRL key pressed.
2. Using SHIFT key
   If you want to select items that are adjacent, you can use the SHIFT key.  Click the first item, then press the SHIFT key and hold it.  Click the last item and release the SHIFT key. 
3. Both SHIFT and CTRL Keys
   You can also use both SHIFT and CTRL keys together.  For example, you can deselect an item from a row selection that you have created with the SHIFT key when you hold the CTRL key and click the item you want to deselect.

You can view the number of participants that have an allowed role by checking the Show Statistics check box. 

Participants can be assigned roles with or without groups.  In the former case, we advise leaving all roles allowed for the All Participants Group as they are set by default.  In the case of assigning roles using groups, we advise starting by dropping all roles for the All Participants Group.  There is one additional contingency to take into consideration:  If new participants are added to the model after roles have been assigned to existing participants, what do we want the roles for the new participants to be?  We describe three cases:

Case 1) If you want the roles for "new" participants to be "allowed" for everything, then leave the "All Participants" group roles set to "Allow" as they are by default.

Case 2) If you want the roles for  "new" participants to be "allowed" for almost everything, then leave the "All Participants" group roles set to "Allow" as they are by default; then "restrict" roles for the new individuals as desired or add them to groups that have roles restricted for the desired nodes.  (The latter can be done via a survey containing a question that is used to assign new participants to a group.)

Case 3) If you want the roles for "new" participants to be "restricted" unless the new participant is in a group or groups that have specific roles enabled, or only if you explicitly allow roles for the participant, then "Drop All" roles from the "All Participants" group.