One straightforward way to approximate the health of work is using colors of a stoplight – Red, Yellow, and Green (“RYG”). A Stoplight Report does not exist on its own. You must assign Red, Yellow, Green TO things in other assets. RYG is applicable to four assets.

• Scorecard — label each metric in a Red, Yellow, or Green range

• Individual Status Report — label each task as Red, Yellow, or Green

• Workstream Status Report — label each dimension as Red, Yellow, or Green

• Portfolio Dashboard — label each dimension as Red, Yellow, or Green

Many organizations want to be objective about what qualifies for each color, but that isn’t critical. What is critical is, when teams identify something not Green then agree on corrective action to return some aspect of work to Green health.

Beware of environments and situations where Red/Yellow/Green ratings are static and rarely change. It is blind and irresponsible for things to stay red for long. It’s Pollyannaish, unrealistic, and delusional to think that things rate green all the time. If the project changes colors reasonably often, that is a sign that the team is attentive, thoughtful, and humble to every dimension of the project.

If any dimension of the project is Red or Yellow, the team should discuss that dimension on a weekly basis until the team considers that dimension Green again.