Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Don’t Touch That Dial
Ian Whittingham, PMP is director of Calixo Consulting, providing project and program management expertise from initiation through to implementation, covering business transformation, workflow process re-engineering, and enterprise data integration. He is a regular contributor to ProjectManagement.com. You may contact Ian directly at [email protected].
The simplicity and concision of their design make them one of the most effective ways to communicate project status. When done well, they invoke an immediate, almost intuitive response that translates into action. For the multi-tasking sponsor or busy boardroom executive, they are the only way to consume the information that matters most to them.
Project dashboards are ubiquitous as the gold standard for project reporting. Their effectiveness derives from the accurate distillation of project monitoring outputs into an easy-to-read, color-coded, concentrated information capsule. The extensive palette of graphical elements available to represent project data can make for insightful and compelling snapshots of a project’s status. But if chosen poorly, those very same elements may also mute or muffle their intended message.
One of the very first project dashboards I came across was based on a somewhat primitive Traffic Light--or RAG (for Red-Amber-Green)--indicator design. Except for the presence of a single colored dot next to the project name, there were no other graphical elements to enhance the one-paragraph project narrative and list of key milestones that comprised the monthly status report.
It doesn’t sound like much of an innovation, but the introduction of that one colored dot enabled the project office to quickly sort and rank …
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