Elizabeth HarrinDirector| RebelsGuideToPM.comLondon, England, United Kingdom
I'm interested in how you categorise projects with colours. We use RAG: Red, Amber, Green. We also use Blue for closed projects. It is a system with a number of limitations because project managers generally try to record everything as green.
I have heard of others using ROYG: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green (and I'm keen to understand the difference between orange and yellow). And I wonder if anyone uses Black for truly difficult projects requiring rescuing.
What do you use and does it work? Saving Changes...
William WiliamsProject Manager| W3src ConsultingCanyon, Tx, United States
As a consultant with a diverse background in a variety of different organizations, my experience includes a poly-chromatic, endless array of color coding, traffic lights, and other graphic, short-hand representations of status. None are effective at communicating nuanced meaning. All are, primarily, an excuse for an executive to avoid looking at (thinking about) meaningful data.
That said, the simpler the better. And, since this is certainly "communication," the meaning behind the color or symbol must be agreed upon and generally accepted within the organization.
The "best case" is often thought to be when the color/symbol is tied to something quite specific. Whether you use EV or some other calculated metric, the color is tied to it and not left to subjective analysis.
However, this is not always accurate. For example, a case where the metric indicates yellow this week but the cause is known, the issue is resolved, and the project will not experience any long term degradation. The opposite can be the case as well, where the "numbers" look green but we just lost a key resource without a back-up and we know it's headed for red.
There are "flavors" of status that play here also. In the case where the color/symbol is for executive consumption, one system used quite successfully in the past is based on whether or not "help" is required. Red, for example, means "we need executive help," amber or yellow is "there's an issue you should know about but no help is required," and green indicates "move along, nothing to see here." Specificity is required here: PMs must expressly and very specifically define the type and scope of "help" needed.
That system worked quite well and actually incentivized the issue escalation process for the PMs. It puts the relationship between PMs and executives in positive territory.
Saving Changes...
Wai Mun KooPMO Director| Intergraph PP&MSingapore, Singapore
Very good discussion. I really like the few ideas William has shared. The combination of color and smiley face proposed by Mark and the weather indicators from Julien are also clever.
We also have a Up/Down arrow or a flat line beside the indicators to show if there is any improvement, no change or getting worse from the previous report. This will help people to see if special attention or help is needed for certain issues that iare getting from bad to worse. Saving Changes...
Elizabeth HarrinDirector| RebelsGuideToPM.comLondon, England, United Kingdom
Thanks, everyone, for your ideas. I have a summary milestone list with dates and I have just colour coded all the dates so people can see if the milestones are on track or not (with blue for complete). However, I agree with William that this is just a way for people to see really simplified information. There are so many nuances on this complex project, and a degree of office politics behind some of the milestones (isn't there always?) that it doesn't ever - couldn't ever - tell the whole story.
I will start adding up and down and flat arrows though to show how things are moving - I think that is an excellent idea! Saving Changes...
Jeff ArmstrongAgile Programme & Portfolio Consultant| business-docs.co.ukLondon, United Kingdom
hi Liz - wow you are active on this board :-)
In terms of RAG, and from a programme perspective I like using this standard for risk scoring:-
It has LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH and CRITICAL values based on Liklehood and Impact. Critical is pink :)
Also, a convenient numeric identifier for ease of communication - each combination of Liklihood and Impact has a unique number.
Great for comms and summarisation. Saving Changes...
Hans RobbersSenior Director| SalesforceVlissingen, Netherlands
Great question and answers
One thing to add:
yellow and Red are signals the project is off track Objective is to bring the project back on track. Too often I see projects in the red zone and not moving any longer out of the red zone. In this way the signal lose its power since the situation is the same week after week
Colors other than green (blue excepted) are warning signals and you as a pm run out of your tolerance levels and corrective action from/with management is required.
So when amber or red the question you have to ask yourself and the management what corrective action is required to bring back the project to green within a limited time e.g. 2-3 weeks. If the answer is nothing it will remain this way it appears to be acceptable and therefore it should remain green
interested in your thoughts Hans Saving Changes...
Elizabeth HarrinDirector| RebelsGuideToPM.comLondon, England, United Kingdom
Hans, that's a good point. I have seen in the past projects that stay at amber or red for weeks. That's not a request for management attention. If a project is red, it should also have a plan to bring it back to green. Saving Changes...
Cheryl TexeiraFounder| Ghost Light Enterprises, Inc.Carson City, Nv, United States
Does anyone have a matrix of factors that consitute Red, Amber or Green?
For example, In-scope and on-schedule = Green, Out of Scope-On Schedule = Yellow, In-scope-off-Schedule=Yellow and Out of Scope-Off schedule = Red.
I would love to see a matrix if anyone has one. Saving Changes...
SHEENA OCONNORSProject Manager| Black KnightJacksonville, Fl, United States
I've been using RAG with black being complete as I'd seen it on another PM's project status. Unfortunately I've found some PM's are just dropping off completed items over 30 days. This made me wonder if PMI had a standard on color coding that I could refer to and reference. While it's interesting to see the similar and yet varied responses it seems we as Project Managers universally do not seem to be any type of unity either.
I do like the idea of a stop light for those color blind though. Saving Changes...
Shafeeque IsmailPortfolio Manager| TAQA Distribution (Abu Dhabi National Energy Company) - Al AinKottayam, Kerala, India
We use four status - Red with the letter R inside the circle, Amber with the letter A inside the circle and Green with letter G inside the circle. The presence of letter in the circle resolves the issue about losing color when printing in black and white.
The fourth status is half Amber and half Green color signifying that it is off track, marked by letter Y. (to ask the question why) :) Saving Changes...
