If you are like many project managers out there, your first project may be a little intimidating. E-mail reports or status updates are considered as one option to management reports. The more significant a project is in terms of how it fits into an organisation, the more risk averse the customer will wish to be, so their indicators will trigger sooner. In some reports, the status of the whole project is represented by a single traffic light. There are issues with project requirements or scope but they are being managed by the team. Or there might be in-your-face problems. Establish a standardized reporting cycle that requires all projects to provide progress reports within the same time window. The template can also give more accuracy with the colors, not to mention where the project actually stands. In project management, project milestones, Read More Milestone Chart: Definition, Example, and BenefitsContinue, The vast majority of people in the project management industry use the terms Scrum and Agile interchangeably, though they are different. In other words, an audit is a process commonly used by organisations and governments to assess their effectiveness and efficiency. While business reports are incredibly useful for management, they also have their limitations. Triple bottom line reporting is a system that enables companies to add the "social bottom line" and the "environmental bottom line" to their "financial bottom line" when reporting their results. Elizabeth is also the founder of the Project Management Rebels community, a mentoring group for professionals. However, the real value is when you report an honest RAG rating and then, if it is amber or red, you accompany this rating with a 'Road to Green'. A Red project is one that is challenged for some reason. In some cases, it means that everything is gold. In the PMP exam, you are going to see six types of questions. Financial reporting also comes with quite a few drawbacks. This is an extremeexample, buthighlights how misleading simply labelling a colour as a status is. 5. In my experience, on small and medium-sized projects it is easier to stick with one color indicator that represents the project managers opinion of overall project status. The management has to be confident in the project to begin with. Disagreements about ratings can consume time and energy that would be better spent identifying ways to remediate control weaknesses. Good places to use this function are things like scope, schedule, budget and overall project progress. The types of questions are as follows: 1. Senior management should maintain a watching brief over Amber projects not necessarily intervening bookkeeping an eye on the potential for the project to move into the red. You have to not only trust the management, but you also need to trust the information. The driven piles can be manufactured outside the site where the project is going to be carried out, this makes an efficient installation possible once it is at the construction site. This may be because they lack information from the project control systems or there is ineffective reporting from the work package managers and/or contractors. Visual cues are so much easier to understand than lengthy status reports, which is why so many project teams use the RAG (red, amber, green) system or something rather similar along the way. A simple risk register using the 55 scoring scheme seen in the APM and PMI bodies of Knowlege. Alternatives to Reports To Management -10. It is possible to calibrate different RAG statuses withempiricaldata, for example no overdue tasks means the schedule is Green. If you are suffering with a problem that is having a negative effect on the project performance or one of the project viability areas is close to the tolerance level, then an amber rating is appropriate. Significant lack of resources which cannot be resolved by the project manager. Progress made this month and projected for the following month. 2. Here are four benefits of the position: 1. This is difficult for a lot of people. There are more than 5 open issues with a status of high but the team is managing these at the moment. A number of advantages of corporate financial reporting can be enumerated and perhaps among the most important is that organizations are able to compare their individual performance with others in the same industry or line of business. To identify the state of the rag, tolerances need to be specified. RAG reporting is only as good as the project managers assessment. Advantages and disadvantages of using rag report The Risk Report (new in PMBOK Guide 6th Edition) is a document used to present. This is a special breed of cats, which has a huge number of advantages. Are there any downsides to this wonderful breed? It all depends. This should adopt a problem-solving approach working with the project manager to identify the root causes of the difficulties facing the project. Keep things short, sweet and focussed to make the most of the RAG rating reports impact. You have to not only trust the management, but you also need to trust the information. However, they need assurance from the underlying data that the project is truly green. On a project status report, the appropriate color can be shown as an indicator at the top of the page, giving the reader a fast visual sign that summarizes project status. The project manager and team have everything under control. You have to expect this. This method of color-coding project status by section is helpful for large projects, particularly when multiple team leaders are in charge of distinct work areas. This is another example of optimism bias which the natural tendency to assume things are going to turn out for the good in the absence of direct evidence the contrary. Project is likely to deliver late/over budget, Project has missed some targets but overall end date/budget is not at risk. 3. It simply means that management attention is required and is a good way to get stakeholders to focus on what they need to do to ensure the project delivers a successful result. No strategies have been laid out to reduce the risk. Green means there are no concerns for senior leadership to worry about and no management intervention is required. Shows the public that the organisation does keep in touch with what they want. This raises a cultural issue about the way we use RAG status reports as part of a project management environment and the reactions of the organization when a project manager sets project to red. Another good technique when using the traffic light system is to report not only on the current situation, but to refer back to previous situations too. Green: No issues, and can be delivered against what was agreed. Its not a competition to be the most green. This leads to governance of the project becoming a tick the box exercisewith work being carried out with little thought behind the purpose. IFRS: Disadvantages of international accounting standards. RAG stands for red, amber, and green. [], [] you would like more information on the RAG reporting, go [], [] more about RAG Status Reporting Posted by paul naybour at 9:29 [], [] How to use RAG Status Reporting For your Project? A green status indicates no problems with the project; however, there may be some flaws that have not yet been discovered that could cause the status to change to amber or red. Consistency is the key. RAG status reporting is extremely effective in a program or portfolio environment because it enables the organization to relate to creating a summary report that consolidates all the status reports from a number of projects into one simple spreadsheet. Can we ultimately trust bosses that use the RAG results? It can consist of statistics, such as schedule, budget performance, and various status indicators. Be a critical friend to the project managers in your department if you see that optimism bias happening. A red project requires immediate management attention to take it out from the current status. In my experience, most Red issues relate to the project schedule (the work is running behind) or budget (the work is costing more than we thought). Simply add a couple of sentences about the RAG meaning that say something like: This avoids there being a different interpretation of what the colors mean. This sheet can be utilized by management to locate projects requiring assistance. The APMG International AgilePM and Swirl Device logo is a trademark of The APM Group Limited, used under permission of The APM Group Limited. Without this confidence in information project managers have then is a tendency to play safe and report project is green when in fact it should really be amber or red. Cost Accounts and forecasts, again the tolerances are set in thevalidation sheet. Read More How to Deal With ITTO Based Questions in the PMP Exam?Continue, A project milestone helps project managers track their progress and determine how close they are to finishing the project. Strengthen Your Credibility and Reputation By using objective analysis to make decisions, you will not only develop better business strategies, you will also improve your own professional reputation in the field and help others to have more confidence in your conclusions. Status reports on resource and quality issues, Progress completed this month and planned for next. Its better to close down a project than throw money at something that is not delivering and has no capacity to be able to deliver the business benefits that were promised or meet the intended business objectives. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. If you are going old school with spreadsheet-based portfolio management, then simply change the cell color to whatever you want it to be. We do hope you found this blog post useful and if you have any further questions about the use of RAG status reports please do get in touch with Parallel Project Training. Use the following simple RAG status report template created based on APM and PMI recommendations. " Rag -deficient" mice. And some companies dont use colors at all, instead favoring smiley faces, weather symbols or some other graphical indicator that shows if a project is progressing to plan, struggling a bit or in trouble. Having to re-learn the legends and nuances for every report is a guaranteed way to frustrate senior management. Your email address will not be published. To counter this senior managers need to respond an appropriate way to the traffic light red. RAG can be used for the following reports: Basically, anywhere you need to tell people about status, you can use RAG. To renew it, you must earn 60 PDUs in three years and report, Read More How to Get 60 Free PMP PDUs for PMP Certification Renewal?Continue, Your email address will not be published. This report provides only a brief overview of general principles that apply to the risk assessment of all types of disasters. The question about why projects fail always generates much interest and statistics. Now you have a clear understanding of how the RAG statuses should be used, its up to you to put them into practice in an effective manner. The management also has to be accurate in their assessments. Advantage: Easy Project Analysis A project leader, a member of the team or anyone who needs to know can quickly refer to the chart to see where a project is, how it's coming along and what stage the project is currently at. If you dont have the option in your tool, create a custom field so project managers can enter the information manually. Quarterly reporting strengthens the position of the US capital markets, which are currently considered liquid and safe - a move to twice-yearly reporting could affect the perceived transparency of the US financial markets. Theconnotationthese coloursrepresentis one of theearliestconceptswedevelopas children and its understandable how they became common practice in a discipline where you need to explain complex scenarios in a concise, simplified manner. One of the biggest shortcomings of RAG ratings as previously mentioned is how much perceptionof themcandifferbetweenindividuals. Almost all aspirants are scared of ITTO-based questions, and they try to find the easiest way to solve them. Read next: How to create a project budget. The latest news from the world of project management. So if you want to use RAG reporting for your projects, portfolios or programmes while the steps to follow. Is the information coming across as fair and correct? This will keep things under budget and on track. Use corrective and preventive actions to bring the project on track. advantages and disadvantages of rag reporting It doesn't provide enough insights into the reasons for customer's choices. Learn how your comment data is processed. To date, thousands of professionals have passed the PMP exam using my resources. For example: Your PMO should define exactly what Red means and then you can check your project performance against those measures. In this post we will explore the practicalities of using RAG status reporting for projects. The advantages of Agile Methodology are inherent in its 12 Principles, as outlined by the Agile Alliance: Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. Additional wording is provided to explain what caused an element to be reported as amber or red, as well as what efforts are being made to remedy the problem for the project to regain its green status. Also have their limitations having to re-learn the legends and nuances for every report is process. Of ITTO-based questions, and can be used for the following simple status! 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