Friday, August 26, 2016

Stoplights

After gantt charts, the next favourite topic of communicative techniques is the project 'stop light' chart. Three colours (red, amber, green) to give a 'high level' view of project performance. However, they are criticised.

On a real project (any decent sized construction project), I've never seen anything as puerile as a stop light pretend chart. I've seen detailed status reports.

There are only two main parameters for projects (once we've established the sought performance of the product): out-turn cost (EAC), and date of (defect free) completion. One could also report drift in the parameters, and if there are unmade decisions creating schedule or cost risk, the EAC and DFC date could have probability ranges attached. Not that a board will pay much attention to the implications of either: best convert them to a date range and a cost range.

On the other hand, some people seem to love RAG status reports. Maybe because they remind them of lollypops...I can't think of a grown-up's reason to like them.

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