The Color-Coded Portfolio

  Governance   Portfolio Management   Stakeholder Management   ProjectsAtWork  

Regardless of whether you are a seasoned project manager or you are embarking on your first project, the use of “color indicators” or “symbols” to indicate the health or status of a project (or a program or portfolio) is most likely something you will relate to. The use of colors and symbols for project dashboards, project health, and project portfolio reporting is commonplace today in project and portfolio management.

Whether or not you use traffic signal lights (iGreen, Amber, and Red) or other colors, the symbolism is the same. As an example, in the Green, Amber and Red scenario, Green indicates “all is well”, Amber indicates corrective action is warranted, and Red indicates an important risk, issue or several of either need to be addressed and resolved.

When you look into your organization’s portfolio, what do you see? Do you see a high portion of the same color (if colors are being used for metrics tracking) or a virtual rainbow spanning the reporting status spectrum? The key to using such status indicators is that they need to represent an accurate picture of health that can, in turn, provide a mechanism to enable “the right people to ask the right questions and get the right support”  to ensure work is appropriately managed. Having a large percentage in the “all is good" status, while it may …

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