3.0 KiB
Duration: 30--40 minutes
Definition
Project health is a concise assessment of whether a project is likely to achieve its agreed outcome within its current commitments.
A common model is:
- Green: on track; no material intervention required.
- Yellow: at risk; attention or corrective action is needed.
- Red: off track or blocked; significant intervention or decision is required.
Simple Mental Model
Project health answers: Do I need to worry or intervene?
Green does not mean people are busy. It means the evidence supports confidence in delivery.
How It Works
Health should consider:
- Next milestone and target
- Current forecast
- Scope stability
- Dependencies
- Risks/issues
- Capacity
- Quality/acceptance
- Decisions required
Yellow should be an early-warning state, not a punishment.
Example:
Umami's production validation is due Aug 20. Development is complete, but DevOps now expects the environment Aug 18 and QA needs four days. The deadline has not passed, but the project is already Yellow.
Do not wait until Aug 21 to discover the problem.
How It Fits Into the Bigger Picture
Milestones provide checkpoints. Dependencies and risks explain threats. Forecasting predicts delivery. Health compresses those signals into a portfolio-level indicator.
My Company / Real-World Context
Your Monday board currently shows execution status, but your management need is closer to:
Umami Yellow
Supabase Green
Mogador Red
QA Automation Green
Data Governance Yellow
Then you focus your attention on Yellow and Red rather than opening every project.
CTO Perspective
Health indicators enable management by exception. But the colors must be trustworthy.
If owners keep projects Green until failure is undeniable, the system is useless. Make early Yellow reporting useful rather than treating it as failure.
Questions to Ask
- What is the next milestone?
- Is the forecast still credible?
- What is the biggest risk?
- Is scope stable?
- Are dependencies committed?
- What specifically would return Yellow to Green?
- Does this need my intervention?
Meeting Scenario
Situation: A project owner reports Green because no deadline has been missed, but a critical vendor deliverable has no confirmed date.
Possible response:
I would mark this Yellow. Health should reflect whether we're likely to hit the commitment, not only whether we've already missed it. What action will give us confidence in the vendor dependency?
Key Takeaways
- Health is forward-looking.
- Green/Yellow/Red need shared definitions.
- Yellow is an early-warning state.
- Percent complete is not project health.
- Health should reflect milestones, risks, dependencies, scope, and forecast.
- Reliable health enables management by exception.
Related Concepts
- Milestones vs Tasks
- Risk Management
- Dependencies
- Status Reporting
- Portfolio Management