I was just about to give up my search I saw an advert in the APM magazine for a new cloud-based product called Lightning Reports, so I though I would give it a try.

Registration and Setting Up

As with all cloud-based package to get a free account and a premium account. The free account if you two customisable reports, pro-account (£6.00 per month) lets a single user have as many reporters alike and the enterprise account (£24.00 per month) lets you have multiple project managers creating reports that form part of portfolio. After registration website takes you through a simple wizard to capture what you want to include in your report. This includes all the normal suspects such as milestones, issues, risks, changes,  and finances. You can also set a number traffic lights using normal red amber green status signals for schedule, costs and risks. The whole process of setting up report takes less than five minutes. This certainly beats trying to learn another new program.

Updating the reports

Once the reports have been defined as a simple matter of logging into the website and updating the data based the project information you have from your normal project control systems. This package isn’t trying to replace your normal planning and control systems it simply collating the progress information into a consistent format for projects in a portfolio. This is done with a number of textbased and graphics fields. The simple projects aspect was no reason why you can use lightning reports to maintain your issues risks and change logs, but for larger projects you may want to keep these in a spreadsheet and just highlight the most significant risks in your report.

Exporting your report

We all know that senior managers have an aversion to IT systems so you probably want to export your report to in a format that can be sent by email. So lightning reports supports a wide range of export formats including PDF, excel, word and PowerPoint.

Managing a portfolio

The real power of cloud-based reporting projects is when you have a portfolio of projects which will need to be collated into one report typically for project board which might be managing several projects. Since several approaches to this in the organisations I work with.

First is to install an enterprise project management system which can generate powerful reports based on the data feed from the finance and planning systems in the organisation. These can either be internal systems or cloud-based project management control systems. However this implies a level of commitment,  competence and capability in project management is not always possible and the reports are only ever is good as information the people feed into the system. The second and more, approach is to collate the reports using Excel and PowerPoint. This works really well for small number of projects but has a number of projects grows it can be difficult for the project management office, usually at the job collating all reports into one pack, to get all information sorted in time. Well I reports looks like it can help is in collating all different reports across a portfolio. However not really this feature yet and it may be that the system will need modifications to group reports into different portfolio etc. However I am glad that after a few months of searching I have found a cloud-based solution to the problem of reporting projects from across a portfolio. Is going to be interesting to see how this product develops over the next few months and years. And certainly going to be recommending it some of my clients.  Which is why I decided to write this blog post. I expect I should say that I have not been paid or induced in any way to write this review. I genuinely think this could be a very useful tool for project managers.

The post RAG Status Reporting with LightningReports appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

Don’t shoot the messenger

Quite often temptation to senior managers on seeing red flag is to attack the project manager to find out what’s gone wrong and what project management planning and control they have in place to recover the project. For project manager who is struggling with a difficult project and trying to keep things from getting worse this can be the last response they need from senior management. You can see how many project managers would prefer to keep the project in the green even if things are going wrong in the hope that they can put it right in the near future. Really to address this senior managers should see a red flag as an indication that they need to support the project manager in resolving the difficulties. Most often in my experience these difficulties are beyond the control the project manager are normally have their roots in resource management issues from the parent organisation or behaviours or expectations of senior stakeholders over which the project manager has little influence. Senior managers may well be in a good position to support the project manager in overcoming these problems.

Failure is not an option

Quite often raising a red flag is seen as an admission of failure on behalf project manager take it personally. Now one likes to admit that there are personal failure. And therefore project manager will do everything that they can do to not raise the flag. Several situations can get a very can do culture and people go around saying things like “failure is not an option”, “if you can’t manage the project will find someone who can” and “this project absolutely has to be delivered on time”. This is of the result of arbitrary dates and deadlines their set without any relevant planning or reference to the resources available. I remember one person telling me that an objective was separate project by CEO because I happened to be the day he was going on holiday and he wants the project finished so they could enjoy his break. These are arbitrary deadlines and dates whilst there may seem like a good idea instil a culture of of blame and fear which prevents people from producing honest progress reports.

Culture of slippage

a cultural slippage happens in complex projects and programmes where more than one project is required to deliver in order to complete the overall project objectives. Here we can ignore the fact that things are going late provided our project is not the last project to deliver the goods needed for the total programme. Provided somebody else’s later than us then we can keep the green light on even if the project is Red because we know somebody else as an even later project.

Head in the sand

Sometimes it’s best not to share an honest appraisal progress and hope that everything else will change around the projects so that delays and overspends will be lost in the force of time. This is especially true when projects have poorly defined scope or deliverables. Then as possible the project my complete part of its scope within the agreed timescales but without flagging up any red issues. By ignoring issues and not pass them on to senior managers we hope that the project may actually deliver something within the expected timescales. With a look no one will notice that the full scope hasn’t been delivered until it’s too late and the project teams moved on something else.

Solutions

So would discuss the reasons why project managers might want to keep projects in the green when they are truly red but what can organisations do to encourage open and honest reporting of project status. Solutions are simple to name but more difficult to implement. They include

Defining clearly what is meant by each traffic light

If the priorities for each traffic light not clearly defined then the ambiguity makes it more difficult for the project manager to know whether their project is red or not. A simple percentage scale for the time and cost overruns can help give clarity to what represents a red project. Without these definitions then no one is quite sure what red means never is best just to avoid the whole topic.

Encouraging a problem-solving culture

This is more difficult, because a red flag is bound to generate some emotional response from senior managers first time is raised. However project managers need to get used to this negative response and with the conversation quickly on to what needs to be done in order to improve the performance of the project. Moving to solution may quickly demonstrates the project manager not only understands the problem but also has a clear set of actions required by the organisation to bring the project back under control. Raising the flag enables a project manager to get the senior management leveraged needed in order to implement these actions.

Project assurance

Asking people to mark their own homework is never a good idea without some external peer review or evaluation. The same applies to status reporting projects should be subject to routine assurance and audit to check that the reporting structures are producing accurate indicators to senior management. In the same way that the order to set of accounts which we also auditing the performance reporting used for projects to ensure it is accurate and prudent. In this way senior managers can generate confidence in reports that they receive and know that they truly reflect the state of the projects in the portfolio.

The post What happens when a project goes red? appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

What is RAG Status Reporting?

RAG status reporting is used when project managers are asked to indicate,  how well a project is doing using the series traffic lights. A red traffic light indicates problems, amber everything is okay, green things going well. Some status reports just use one traffic light to indicate the overall project status, but typically project status report will include indicators the things such as performance against the budget, timescales, quality, and resources. Typically RAG status reports are used to summarise more qualitative data based on planned expenditure and the project schedule. The RAG reports give an instant indication to senior management of the project status and the need to intervene if the project is going out of control.

Why Use RAG Status Reporting?

RAG status reporting is extremely effective in a program or portfolio environment because it enables the organisation to create a summary report that consolidates all the status reports from a number of projects into one simple spreadsheet (download a template below). This can be used by the senior management in the organisation to quickly identify those projects which are in trouble and need support from the organisation to address weaknesses. The danger of this approach is that it relies on the project managers being confident enough to give genuine reports on project status. 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 organisation when a project manager sets the project to red. Everyone in the organisation needs a clear indication of what red means and then they need to behave in an appropriate way to address the underlying problems in the project not just “shoot the messenger“.

Rag Status Indicators and Actions

Ideally defining tolerances which can guide the selection of the appropriate rag status. These rag status indicators can be linked to the critical success criteria for the project. In this way, the organisation can get confidence that the rag status reports are based on more than just a subjective assessment of the project status. In the table below we define some typical RAG status indicators based on performance against time, cost, quality, resources and stakeholder satisfaction. Clearly these indicators will be different organisations because they have different sensitivities to overspends or delays in project delivery depending on the market the organisation serves.

Rag Status	Status Indicators	Actions
Red	A red indicator usually means one or more of the following   A significant forecast overspend against the budget of say more than 10%. Delays against critical milestones more than say four weeks. Problems with quality that lead to significantly work additional cost. Significant lack of resources which cannot be resolved by the project manager. Dissatisfaction or resistance from stakeholders that mean acceptance may be delayed all the benefits not achieved.	Senior management should review the project with the project manager to identify the root causes of the red status and identify an action plan required to prevent further deterioration and minimise the damage caused to the overall organisation.
Amber	An amber indicator usually means one or more of the following   A significant forecast overspend against the budget of say more than 5%. Delays against critical milestones more than say two weeks. Problems with quality but not causing a delay. Lack of resources which can be resolved by the project manager. Dissatisfaction or resistance from stakeholders addressed by the project manager	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.
Green	A green indicator usually means one or more of the following   A forecast expenditure is on budget Project on plan to complete on time Quality at expected levels. No resource problems Stakeholders satisfied with the outcome.	Senior management can relax and let the project manager progress with the delivery of the project. However, they need assurance from the underlying data that the project is truly green.

The Disadvantage of RAG Reporting

One of the main disadvantages RAG reporting is lack of trust in the traffic lights reported by project managers. This stems from two factors first project managers may not have the confidence or the understanding of the project status to identify will project is heading to red. 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. One way in which project managers can get confidence in information now been provided is by doing project assurance reviews and surveillance reviews to make sure the information been provided to the project manager is fair and accurate. 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. 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. A second reason why project managers may resist setting a project to red is that they fear the reaction of senior managers to the news that the project has gone out of control. They feel it’s better to stay on green so they can sort out the problems themselves than highlight the project as red which will generate lots of additional interest and questions about the project. To counter this senior managers need to respond an appropriate way to the traffic light red. This should adopt a problem-solving approach working with the project manager to identify the root causes of the difficulties facing the project. Often these root causes lie outside the direct control of the project manager such as interference external stakeholders, lack of resources or failure of another project in my organisation to produce deliverables on which this project depends.

Practical Hints and Tips

So if you want to use RAG reporting for your projects, portfolios or programmes while the steps to follow.

1. Step one define a template RAG status report including indicators of the levels for Red Amber Green. Some organisations call this a project on-page. And typically it includes rag status indicators and the underlying data such as budget and schedule performance.
2. Step two seek agreement from senior managers and project managers of the behaviours to be expected when a project reports using rag status reporting
3. Step three establish a consistent reporting cycle which all projects submit status reports are in the same timeframe
4. Step four establish an assurance program to confirm the status reports being presented are a true and fair representation project status

Download Template RAG Status Report

I have designed a simple RAG status report that you can download here; It’s based on the guidance from the APM and PMI bodies of Knowledge.

It includes sections for

• The project schedule, milestones and a traffic light. This is calculated using the tolerances in the setup sheet.
• Cost Accounts and forecasts, again the tolerances are set in the validation sheet.
• Status reports on resource and quality issues
• Progress completed this month and planned for next
• A simple risk register using the 5×5 scoring scheme seen in the APM and PMI bodies of Knowlege. Again the lookup and scoring scheme is set up in the validation sheet and can be edited.
• A simple issue register, again using the validation sheet to set the status fields.
• A simple changelog.

You can download the sheet in excel here or a PDF view here No warranty or guarantee is implied by this free download, but it should get you going on RAG status reporting.

Please do let me know how you get on with this template and get in touch if you need further assistance seeing up the systems and processes for RAG status reporting.

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.

The post How to use RAG Status Reporting For your Project? appeared first on Project Accelerator News.

However, the usefulness of this type of ratings system depends greatly on the ability of the project manager to assess and assign the correct status to each issue. The purpose of traffic lighting various project processes is to highlight progress and make it simpler to see when intervention is needed, so being able to use it effectively is crucial if you are going to use it at all.

Understanding RAG definitions is the first step to utilising this useful tool to its full potential.

• Red

Red should only be used when there are significant issues with the project or the process it is allocated to. It can be used when one area of project viability such as scope, time or budget goes beyond the tolerance levels agreed at the start. Red signifies that the matter needs to be escalated to senior management for support immediately.

• Amber

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. Usually amber problems can be dealt with within the project team, by the project manager and team members, although it is good practice to alert the project board or senior management to such issues.

• Green

Green for go! Everything is functioning as expected and the project performance is as planned. All viability areas are well within tolerance levels and no action is needed.

Now you have a clear understanding of how the RAG statuses should be used, it’s up to you to put them into practice in an effective manner.

Using RAG status reports

The RAG allocation should be used sparingly and only for defined areas. Good places to use this function are things like scope, schedule, budget and overall project progress. The colour allocation should be accompanied by a clear and concise written report, highlighting to the board, senior management and / or project sponsor the reason for the colour allocation.

Problems tend to occur when the report becomes too lengthy or detailed. Including too much detail causes important issues to be missed, and can hinder taking action to resolve these problems. Keep things short, sweet and focussed to make the most of the RAG rating reports impact.

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. For example, weekly RAG reports could include a recap on last week’s RAG status too, so project sponsors and senior managers can see which direction things are moving in.

Do you use the RAG system for your projects? How useful have you found it?

The post Are you using RAG status ratings to full effect? appeared first on Project Accelerator News.