Drivers
Drivers Overview
Drivers are the factors that determine how feasibly a portfolio item can be executed. They are the core of Vane Loop's assessment model — by identifying and scoring the right drivers, you build a data-driven picture of where your portfolio stands and what is holding it back.
What a Driver is
A driver represents a specific condition, capability, or constraint that affects the feasibility of a portfolio item. Examples include things like data ownership clarity, platform maturity, stakeholder alignment, or integration complexity.
Each driver has two properties that determine how much it influences the overall feasibility score:
| Property | Scale | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 1–5 | How important this driver is relative to others |
| Impact | 1–10 | How well this driver is currently performing |
Together, weight and impact produce each driver's contribution to the overall score. Drivers with high weight and low impact are your biggest risks — they matter a lot but are underperforming.
The Three Dimensions
Drivers are organised into three dimensions, each representing a different aspect of feasibility.
Governance
Governance drivers cover the policies, processes, ownership structures, and stewardship practices around your data. A portfolio item with weak governance is harder to execute reliably and at scale, regardless of its technical quality.
Examples: data ownership, data quality standards, compliance frameworks, metadatamanagement.
Architecture
Architecture drivers cover the technical infrastructure, platforms, integrations, and tooling that support your portfolio item. Gaps here often surface as delivery risk or operational fragility.
Examples: platform maturity, pipeline reliability, integration complexity, toolingcoverage.
People
People drivers cover the human and organisational factors — team capability, stakeholder engagement, and change management readiness. Even technically sound items fail when the people side is neglected.
Examples: stakeholder alignment, team skills, executive sponsorship, change readiness.
Fixed and Variable Drivers
Drivers come in two types:
Fixed drivers are standard drivers defined at the organisational level. They apply consistently across your portfolio and ensure comparability between items. Fixed drivers are typically set up by an admin and appear as suggestions when adding drivers.
Variable drivers are custom drivers you define yourself for a specific context. Use these when a standard driver does not capture something unique to your situation.
Both types contribute equally to the feasibility score.
Distribution Factors
The three dimensions do not automatically carry equal weight. The Distribution tab in the Feasibility & Maturity window lets you allocate 100% of the overall score across Governance, Architecture, and People using a three-segment slider.
For example, if your organisation is in an early data governance phase, you might allocate more weight to Governance. If your team is technically strong but struggling with adoption, you might weight People more heavily.
Adjusting one segment automatically rebalances the others to keep the total at 100%.
Only admins can change the distribution. Other roles will see it as read-only.
The Feasibility & Maturity Score
All drivers across all three dimensions roll up into a single overall maturity score from 1 to 10, grouped into four bands:
| Band | Score range |
|---|---|
| Under Performing | 1–2 |
| Average | 3–5 |
| High | 6–8 |
| Over Performing | 9–10 |
The score is visible at a glance in the Feasibility & Maturity live tile on the desktop, which rotates through several views: overall score, per-dimension breakdown, your highest-risk drivers, and scoring status.
Scoring Drivers
Drivers are scored using the Vane Loop Agent. The Agent runs a guided conversation, asks questions relevant to each driver, and uses your answers to set the impact score.
Scores can become outdated over time as your portfolio evolves. The live tile tracks how many drivers are up to date, outdated, or unscored, so you always know when a re-score is due.
See Scoring Drivers with the AI Agent for a step-by-step guide.
The Activity Log
The Activity tab in the Feasibility & Maturity window shows a chronological log of all changes made to your drivers — scores updated, drivers added or removed, weights changed — so you have a full audit trail of how your assessment has evolved.
