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Code Yellow
I am always intrigued to hear about projects that are consistent in terms of reporting their "stop light" status--and the consistency turns out to be the use of Code Yellow to report project status. Not that I am averse to this sunny color, but the notion that it can be used as a shield for self-defense against the closet monsters is something that I desist to nurture and promote.
Considerations regarding the usage of Code Yellow
- Code Yellow cannot be an "automatic project state" by default. Project progress and status needs to be reported against an established and agreed upon baseline. While not all projects (and project managers) might use formal processes like Earned Value Management, the reality is that you need at least one baseline and an agreed-upon process to track and report against the baseline. Even a stand-alone process like overall milestone tracking can be used as to benchmark and report status. On the other hand, you could go as granularly as you'd like on the WBS and report status at the elemental level. In any case, report the status against a baseline, so that you can track progress over time and take corrective action as required.
- Code Yellow doesn't deliver any results, nor is it an insurance policy against known risk and uncertainty. It definitely offers no hedge to manage potential unknown risks. So the argument about using "…
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