Is anyone aware of an article, podcast or other article which dives into the emotional or psychological impacts of project status colors and how to mitigate those? Thanks!

PMO Schedule Management

Erik Josephson Ga, United States

I believe I saw an article come across my desk recently on this topic, however I cannot now find it despite all combinations of Google search terms I can think of. What I recall of the article was that it was talking about how status colors (yellow and red) can engender emotional responses which we need to confront, lest the temptation be to report green in order not to offend. If anyone can think of any resources related to this theme, I'd be much obliged if you could point them out! Thanks

Posted: May 16, 2024 3:58 PM

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Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada

Erik -

Here are three articles from this site related to the drivers for greenshifting/watermelon reporting:

1. https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles...n-project-state

2. https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles...rmelon-projects

3. https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles...rmelon-projects

Kiron

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1 reply by Erik Josephson

May 16, 2024 6:04 PM

Erik Josephson

...

Thanks Kiron. Appreciate you sharing those.

Posted: May 16, 2024 5:56 PM

Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada

Erik -

You could also look at Tom Geraghty's great site on Psychological Safety at https://psychsafety.co.uk/ which has tons of resources related to how the lack of safety can create such dysfunctional behavior.

Kiron

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1 reply by Erik Josephson

May 17, 2024 6:30 AM

Erik Josephson

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Thanks again. Very interesting. Hadn't come across this before.

Posted: May 16, 2024 5:58 PM

Erik Josephson Ga, United States

May 16, 2024 5:56 PM

Replying to Kiron Bondale

...

Thanks Kiron. Appreciate you sharing those.

Posted: May 16, 2024 6:04 PM

Erik Josephson Ga, United States

May 16, 2024 5:58 PM

Replying to Kiron Bondale

...

Thanks again. Very interesting. Hadn't come across this before.

Posted: May 17, 2024 6:30 AM

Verónica Elizabeth Pozo Ruiz RYLAI Access Control Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador

It's a good consideration to take into account the psychological impacts of color when used for status reports and dashboards. In addition, when we have vision-impaired team members or stakeholders, it's also essential to consider the contrast ratio between background and foreground color. A correct contrast ratio guarantees that persons with vision problems read text adequately.

Posted: Jul 16, 2024 7:49 PM

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Is anyone aware of an article, podcast or other article which dives into the emotional or psychological impacts of project status colors and how to mitigate those? Thanks!

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