How Allyway benchmarks work.
Allyway benchmarks are built from real assessments completed by real organisations. Comparative numbers — percentiles, peer averages, rankings, cohort histories — only appear once a cohort is large enough to be defensible. Until then we show your own results and a trust strip that says exactly where the cohort stands.
How cohorts are built
A peer cohort combines category, geography, scale and operating model. Each completed assessment contributes new data points; an assessment joins a peer cohort when enough comparable organisations are in place. Assessments submitted through the public landing-site flow are held as pending until an admin approves them, so the benchmark distribution is never disturbed by anonymous or unreviewed submissions.
Confidence bands
- Verified — 30 or more organisations in the cohort. Percentiles, peer averages, rankings and cohort histories are visible.
- Moderate — 10 to 29 organisations. Comparative content is withheld; the trust strip shows the current sample size.
- Indicative — 5 to 9 organisations. Comparative content is withheld.
- Sample building — fewer than 5 organisations. Comparative content is withheld.
These thresholds apply to every customer-facing surface in the platform and refresh each cycle. Staff can see raw cohort metadata internally; customer surfaces follow the bands above.
What we always show
Your own assessment results, capability and dimension scores, strategic insights, recommended initiatives and progress tracking — regardless of cohort status. The benchmark layer is a comparison, not a prerequisite.
What we never show
Percentiles, peer averages, rankings and cohort comparisons until a cohort is verified. We never seed synthetic peers, illustrative rankings, mock benchmark histories or fabricated driver and opportunity copy to make the surface look more complete than the underlying data allows.
Refresh cadence
Benchmark distributions are recomputed on a rolling cadence as new approved assessments are added. The trust strip on each surface shows the last refresh date for the active cohort, or "Not available yet" when the cohort has never produced a published distribution.
Public diagnostic
The public diagnostic at /score uses the same approach. Sector and global cohorts are shown with their actual sample size and the minimum required for publication. Peer averages and deltas are suppressed when the active sector cohort is below the minimum sample size; only your own score is shown.
Questions about a specific cohort or status? philip.hallden@allyway.se.