Track progress with RAG status

Status is the one field that makes a plan reportable. Get it wrong and every roll-up above it is wrong too.

The five states

At item level, on a task or a section, they read:

• Planning. Not started. This is the default, so a plan that has never been touched reads as Planning rather than as On Track.
• On Track. Proceeding to plan.
• Recoverable. Slipping, but you can still pull it back inside the current plan.
• Blocked. Not recoverable without a decision, more resource or a date change. This is the one that should reach a steerco.
• Closed. Done.

The same five, said to an executive

On roll-ups, the project header, the dashboard, the steerco pack, the same statuses are worded for the audience: Off-Track, At Risk, On Track, Complete and Planning. A project being off-track is a different sentence from a task being blocked. The tone differs; the meaning does not. Two registers, one status, and both are deliberate.

How the roll-up works

A project's status is worst-of across its active workstreams, so one blocked workstream turns the project header. That is intentional: an average would hide exactly the thing you needed to see. A project whose workstreams are all closed rolls up as Complete.

Reading it without relying on color

Every RAG indicator carries a shape as well as a hue, one shape per status, so the status is legible if you cannot separate red from green. Status is written as a word wherever there is room for one.

Keeping it honest

Status is not derived from percentage complete, and it should not be. A task at 90 percent with a dependency that has not landed is Blocked, not On Track. Meeting Intelligence proposes status changes it hears on calls, which is a good way to keep the plan matching what people actually said.