RAG status – Red is a call for help

A RAG status uses the colour of traffic lights (Red, Amber, Green) to signal project status. This is a pretty standard tool in the project manager’s tool kit but some folk don’t think RAG is helpful in an Agile context. Personally I use RAG status for risks and issues and have redefined what they mean. In my scheme Red becomes a call for help.
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Another kicking from stakeholders? Not when dispassionate and positive

“Well, we just got another kicking”. A group of us, representing technology, had just attended the regular programme board meeting with the business types. In the debrief afterwards the technology folk around me were despondent. In fact they were despondent every month after this meeting. They genuinely felt kicked. But I didn’t. I never did. It was almost like I experienced a completely different meeting to that experienced by my colleagues.
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Specialists are a Pain

Specialists are very useful. They are also a pain. It is great to have the experts around when we need them. But specialists are also add painful management overhead. I accept I have to do it but I wish I didn’t.

I’m going to look at three situations where I’ve had to deal with specialists and explain what I did:

  • Drowning in specialists
  • Front / Back end developers
  • Part time external specialists

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Agile Status Report for Executives: Best, Worst, Throughput

My programme’s Sponsoring Group asked me to send a weekly status report. This was to compensate for the fact they were at a remote site and hence couldn’t see the walls of our informative workspace. They were paying the bills so who was I to argue.

Luckily they don’t want a lot of detail. They want to know three things:

  • Throughput
  • Best thing this week
  • Worst thing this week

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