Vague wording — the curse of bad assessments… and how to fix it

Have you ever been asked to assess and compare complicated entities such as projects, product proposals, or business plans using “vague” wording such as “good”, “medium”, and “high”? Was it difficult? Did you agree with colleagues on the assessment?

Examples of vaguely formulated assessment statements and scales include:

• The project has a low/medium/high chance of success in 5 years.
• The product shows poor/ok/good/excellent performance compared with competitors.