You may wish to summarise the interests of more than one Party as a single figure. For instance, to summarise the ownership interests of multiple Persons, or to give the ultimate result of a Chain of control interests.
Summarised figures might appear in the captions to your diagram, in its supporting text, or as part of the diagram itself through Optional Features such as Indirect Arrows or Charts.
Summarisation results in a quantified interest, that is, a percentage figure, even if the interests that were summarised were obscured or not quantified. However, the summarised figure may contain uncertainty (that is, it may be a range, e.g. 10-20%).
These summarised figures must obviously be mathematically accurate. This can be tricky to calculate when interests are obscured. Take care to follow the arithmetic rules below to ensure summarised figures are correct.
In general, interests are summarised in the following way:
Summarisation must focus on interests of a single nature, i.e. either ownership or control. In the below, we write just “interest” for brevity; this should be taken to mean “interest of the selected nature”.
You may summarise the interests of multiple Parties in a given Entity by adding together each of their direct interests in that Entity. The summarised figure is referred to as their combined interest in the given Entity.
If any interest in your addition is uncertain, i.e. is given as a range, then your output will also be uncertain. To calculate the result:
Party | Interest | Known Portion | Unknown Portion | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Person A | 10% | 10% | 0% | |
Person B | + | 5-10% | 5% | 5% |
Person C | + | 10-15% | 10% | 5% |
Combined | = | 25-35% | 25% | 10% |
Addition involving uncertainty may result in a range with more than 100% as its upperbound. For instance:
Party | Interest | Known Portion | Unknown Portion | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Person A | 50-75% | 50% | 25% | |
Person B | + | 25-50% | 25% | 25% |
Combined | = | 75-125% | 75% | 50% |
This accurately reflects our lack of knowledge about where these uncertainties overlap. That is, we don’t know whether the 25% unknown portion of Person A’s interest is completely accounted for by the 25% unknown portion of Person B’s interest.
If any interest in your addition is unknown, i.e. the nature or the strength of interest is not known:
Party | Interest | Known Portion | Unknown Portion | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Person A | Unknown Nature | 0% | 100% | |
Person B | + | 10% | 10% | 0% |
Combined | = | 10-110% | 10% | 100% |
Party | Interest | Known Portion | Unknown Portion | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Person A | + | Unknown Strength | 0% | 100% |
Person B | + | Unknown Nature | 0% | 100% |
Person C | + | Unknown Strength | 0% | 100% |
Combined | = | 0-300% | 0% | 300% |
Any result that is a range from 0% to 100% or more, i.e. a complete unknown, can be abbreviated as “?%”.
If any interest in your addition includes an unquantifiable property, i.e. something that cannot be expressed as a figure:
Party | Interest | Quantifiable | Unquantifiable | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Person A | 5% | 5% | ||
Person B | + | Influence | 0% | Influence |
Person C | + | 5% | 5% | |
Combined | = | 10% | 10% | |
or | = | 10% + Influence | 10% | Influence |
When giving the combined control interests of the above 3 people, you might choose to give this as:
You may summarise the interest of a single Party in a distant Entity by multiplying together each direct interest along the Chain from the first Party to the final Entity. The summarised figure is referred to as the Party’s compounded interest in the given Entity.
If any interest in your multiplication is uncertain, i.e. is given as a range, then your output will also be uncertain. To calculate the result:
Party | Interest | Lowerbound | Upperbound | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Entity A | 50% | 50% | 50% | |
Entity B | × | 30-40% | 30% | 40% |
Compounded | = | 15-20% | 15% | 20% |
Party | Interest | Lowerbound | Upperbound | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Entity A | 50-75% | 50% | 75% | |
Entity B | × | 30-40% | 30% | 40% |
Compounded | = | 15-30% | 15% | 30% |
If any interest in your multiplication is unknown, i.e. the nature or the strength of interest is not known:
Party | Interest | Lowerbound | Upperbound | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Entity A | Unknown Nature | 0% | 100% | |
Entity B | × | 50% | 50% | 50% |
Compounded | = | 0-50% | 0% | 100% |
Party | Interest | Lowerbound | Upperbound | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Entity A | Unknown Strength | 0% | 100% | |
Entity B | × | Unknown Nature | 0% | 100% |
Entity C | × | Unknown Strength | 0% | 100% |
Compounded | = | 0-100% | 0% | 100% |
Any result that is a range from 0% to 100% or more, i.e. a complete unknown, can be abbreviated as “?%”.
If any interest in your multiplication includes an unquantifiable property, i.e. something that cannot be expressed as a figure:
Party | Interest | Quantifiable | Unquantifiable | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Person A | Influence | 0% | Influence | |
Entity B | × | 50% | 50% | |
Entity C | × | 50% | 50% | |
Compounded | = | 0% | 0% | |
or | = | Influence | 0% | Influence |
When giving the compounded interest of Person A, you might choose to give this as:
Diagrams should be faithful to the data they are drawn from, and that data may sometimes imply a strength of interest that is greater than 100% (in either its known or unknown part). This may be because:
In each of these cases, visualising that the data implies interests greater than 100% is informative, highlighting the need for further checks on the data, or for care to be taken in data interpretation. It’s another way in which the diagram shows what we don’t know about the situation.
For this reason, it’s not advisable to round interests down to 100%. However, if such manipulation is unavoidable for a particular use case, note within the diagram that you have done this, and provide a clear explanation of the process and rationale in your supporting text.