Reporting regularly on project status is often a key component of successful project management and delivery: it guards against unwanted surprises and acts as the basis for action to complete the project within the baseline scope, time, and budget.
The purpose of a project status report is to bring stakeholders up to date with a project’s progress since the last update and provide actionable information necessary to mitigate risk and resolve problems.
A quick and easy way to let the stakeholders know of the project’s health and risk level is by using a status rating system based on traffic light designations.
Status indicators
Radar system provides four color indicators to communicate status. Their meaning, in the most general terms, is as follows:
- Green: Project is progressing as planned or better.
- Yellow: Project has encountered a problem and is at risk of not meeting the set targets. Assistance may be needed.
- Red: There is a problem that requires corrective action to bring the project back on track.
- Gray (Undefined): Not enough information to determine true status.
The exact criteria used to determine each status are not universal and will vary widely between organizations and projects.
Given the variety of size and complexity of projects, the system does not impose any limitations on the number of status indicator fields you can create and add to the status report forms. This means that you can track and report status both on a whole project and on all its deliverables and aspects separately.
