{"id":1340,"date":"2020-01-21T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inswwdev.azurewebsites.net\/au\/insights\/uncategorized\/colourful-words-in-project-management\/"},"modified":"2023-01-17T00:31:44","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T00:31:44","slug":"colourful-words-in-project-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/insights\/geek-speak\/modern-workplace\/colourful-words-in-project-management\/","title":{"rendered":"Colourful Words in Project Management"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>When a project is assigned to and managed by a Project Manager (PM), it\u2019s their responsibility to monitor and control the project to ensure it is delivered on time, on budget and within scope. At Insentra our PMs strive to accurately and efficiently communicate the project status to key project stakeholders which includes the project team and project board. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Project stakeholders are busy people so we use \u201ccolourful words\u201d at Insentra to get them the project status they need \u2013 Red, Amber or Green are our words of choice. We (and a lot of the PM industry) call this a RAG status. <\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-bottom: 15px; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-top: 40px; border-bottom: 1px solid #f16020;\">WHAT IS RAG STATUS<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>What does a RAG status mean? Just imagine traffic lights at an intersection with those three (3) colours:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Green \u2013 Going<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Amber \u2013 Warning <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Red \u2013 Stop <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>At Insentra we interpret the RAG with similar, but more industry relevant, definitions and measurements:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Green: The project is on track and within the approved tolerances<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Amber: The project is off track and needs stakeholder attention because tolerances have, or are expected to be, exceeded. Maybe the project has just experienced issues and a remediation plan is being agreed within the next reporting cycle. Possibly an agreed remediation plan is being executed to recover the project back to approved tolerances<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Red: Project progress is off track and there isn\u2019t an agreed remediation plan to return the project to agreed tolerances. The project team needs stakeholder assistance to help recover the project or to reset tolerances<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Of course, RAG status doesn\u2019t have a \u201cone size fits all\u201d definition and other organisations might choose different dimensions such as allowing the project to exceed tolerance by a percentage or defined limit.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-bottom: 15px; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-top: 40px; border-bottom: 1px solid #f16020;\">APPLYING RAG<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Whilst an advanced matrix structure specifying project targets in various sizes and categories might sound grand, this may be complicated and difficult to understand. We have found simple is best because a wide range of stakeholders find it easier to remember and understand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>In addition to a RAG status for the whole project, it might also be beneficial to consider applying RAG to:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>A project workflow<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Business or project risk<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Issues or a cumulative problem<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Project change<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Almost anything!<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Insentra\u2019s larger projects or programmes use a RAG status for each project or project workstream. These are then aggregated to provide an overall status of the project or programme which quickly lets stakeholders know how things are going and where concerns might exist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Sometimes the acronym BRAG is used. The \u201cB\u201d stands for Blue, which typically indicates a completed project or project item \u2013 and when something is complete on time and in budget then it is a good reason to brag! Depending on the reporting construct, this allows project stakeholders to easily filter out completed projects or items to quickly see where attention is needed.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-bottom: 15px; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-top: 40px; border-bottom: 1px solid #f16020;\">RAG RISKS<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>A RAG status doesn&#8217;t have a clear plan of action or, in other words, a project in Red status doesn&#8217;t automatically mean that there are problems which need to be solved immediately. The drivers for the RAG status need to be explained in more detail and the \u2018Go To Amber\u2019 or \u2018Go To Green\u2019 plans clearly stated and reviewed. Our thought-leadership approach at Insentra means that our PMs will always include a \u2018Go To Amber\u2019 plan if the RAG status is Red and a \u2018Go To Green\u2019 plan if the status is Amber. These plans seek to set and align stakeholder expectations and make sure the plans are being continuously monitored and assessed.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-bottom: 15px; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-top: 40px; border-bottom: 1px solid #f16020;\">CONCLUSION<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Efficiency is at the heart of Insentra and we believe that everyone\u2019s time is valuable. Our \u201ccolourful words\u201d let stakeholders know what is happening at a glance and focus their valuable time on the content which matters most to them. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">What \u201ccolourful words\u201d do you use?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When a project is assigned to and managed by a Project Manager (PM), it\u2019s their responsibility to monitor and control the project to ensure it is delivered on time, on budget and within scope. At Insentra our PMs strive to accurately and efficiently communicate the project status to key project stakeholders which includes the project&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/insights\/geek-speak\/modern-workplace\/colourful-words-in-project-management\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Colourful Words in Project Management<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-modern-workplace","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15621,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1340\/revisions\/15621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}