Anticipating the Future

By Lee R. Lambert, PMP

Is the project dashboard just another passing fad? Does your project have one? Is anyone using it? This common sense tool has the potential to help project managers predict the effect of current status on the future of the project. Simple concept: Green means go, Yellow means caution (go slow), and Red means stop! 

We learned this concept early. We were taught by our parents what the colors of a traffic light represented. Time and time again; Green means go, Yellow means caution (slow down), and Red means stop! It became drilled into our minds. If you don’t slow down on Yellow and stop on Red there could be a serious accident!

However, if I continue the analogy, the way most drivers respond to a traffic light is Green means go, Yellow means speed up, and Red means ……… well you get the point. Project dashboard sounds good when you say it fast! The fact is the majority of the project managers who have one are not utilizing it for the purpose for which it was designed. It is a risk management tool. Yellow is the key. When the status of a project turns yellow it indicates that plan and actual are different and it serves as a warning that analysis is needed to enable management to take action (if needed). If attention is not given to yellow the probability of turning red is high. Red get attention and therein lies the reason the dashboard is not being used effectively. Nobody wants the “help” of higher level management so there is a significant reluctance to report Red.  So, projects start Green, turn Yellow, stay Yellow, stay Yellow and never turn Red. Objective accomplished. No senior management “help”. But in the meantime the project status continues to get worse until Red can no longer be avoided.  Unfortunately by then it may be too late. The window for productive change may be closed.

If you get a project dashboard—USE it!