Month: November 2020

The Project Health Scorecard Part 4 – Value

Professor of Project Management Project Execution and Monitoring

Executing Monitoring and Controlling

Here is the suggested guidance for the status of the Project Value Health:

Your Value Health is Green if ALL of these things are true:

  • The business objectives are stated in the project charter
  • The business objectives are measurable
  • The value in the business case will still be achieved
  • There are no compromises from the original scope and schedule that affects the value of the solution.

Your Value Health is Yellow if ANY of these are true:

  • The business objectives stated in the project charter may not be achieved
  • There are compromises (e.g. a smaller testing window) from the original scope and schedule that somewhat affect the value of the solution.

Your Value Health is Red if ALL of these are true:

  • The business objectives stated in the project charter cannot be achieved
  • There are compromises (e.g. a smaller testing window) from the original scope and schedule that have a major affect on the value of the solution.

Note: Much more detail on the Project Health Scorecard can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at

https://www.amazon.com/author/lettera

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The Project Health Scorecard Part 3 – Scope Health

Professor of Project Management Project Execution and Monitoring ,

Executing Monitoring and Controlling

Here is the suggested guidance for the status of the Project Scope Health:

Your Scope Health is Green if all of these are true:

  • You have an approved Project Charter
  • Scope is defined in the Charter
  • There is a defined scope change request process

Your Scope Health is Yellow if all of these are true:

  • You have an approved Project Charter
  • Scope is defined but there are significant change requests pending Executive Sponsor review and approval

Your Scope Health is Red if one of these is true:

  • Scope is not defined
  • Scope is defined and there is no approved scope change process
  • The defined Scope change process is not being followed.

Note: Much more detail on the Project Health Scorecard can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at

https://www.amazon.com/author/lettera

The Project Health Scorecard Part 2 – Budget Health

Professor of Project Management Project Execution and Monitoring ,

Executing Monitoring and Controlling

Here is the suggested guidance for the status of the Project Budget Health:

Your Budget Health is Green if all of these are true:

  • You have an approved budget
  • It is actively managed
  • The current forecast is within the approved budget

Your Budget Health is Yellow if all of these are true:

  • You have an approved budget
  • The current forecast is greater than the approved budget but corrective action is defined and likely to resolve the problem.

Your Budget Health is Red if either of these are true:

  • You don’t have a budget
  • You have a  budget and the forecast is greater than the current budgeted amount and corrective action is not possible

Your budget health can turn back to Green if you obtain approval for a new budget. The new budget becomes your new baseline from which you will measure budget health.

Note: Much more detail on the Project Health Scorecard can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at

https://www.amazon.com/author/lettera

The Project Health Scorecard Part 1 – Project Schedule Health

Professor of Project Management Project Execution and Monitoring, Project Planning

Executing Monitoring and Controlling

Here is the suggested guidance for the status of the Project Schedule Health:

Your Schedule Health is Green if:

  • You have a schedule and…
  • It is actively managed and…
  • The forecast matches the published completion date

Your Schedule Health is Yellow if:

  • It is early in the project and you don’t have a schedule but are working towards one, or…
  • You have a schedule and the forecast has a greater “live date” than the current published date but corrective action is defined and probable, or…
  • The schedule is not being actively managed.

Your Schedule Health is Red if:

  • You don’t have a schedule, or…
  • You have one but the published live date cannot be met.
  • Note: Red can turn back to Green when a new schedule is approved and base-lined.

Note: Much more detail on the Project Health Scorecard can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at

https://www.amazon.com/author/lettera

The Project Health Scorecard: Overview

Professor of Project Management Project Execution and Monitoring

Executing Monitoring and Controlling

Some years ago, a company I worked for invested in improving our Project Management practices. They engaged with IBM professional services for 6 months to guide and mentor the in-house Project Managers. The first thing the IBM consultants did was establish a baseline that would be used to measure success at the end of the engagement. This baseline was “The Project Health Scorecard” (aka “PHS”). The PHS was measured at the beginning and end of the engagement as evidence of progress in our project management practices. I am a big fan of this concept and now use it on my project dashboard for all of my projects.

The PHS is an “early warning system” for potential project trouble. In that sense it is a child of Risk Management. Because of its condense and concise nature, it is appropriate for use in Project dashboards as well Project Portfolio dashboards, where you can see the health of all active projects at once. I typically update the PHS weekly in the regular project status meetings.

The PHS contains six key measures of project management best practices. Each measure is given a status value of “green”, “yellow” or “red”. I will present each of these measures along with the guidance for status values in an upcoming six part series as follows:

  • Part 1: Schedule
  • Part 2: Budget
  • Part 3: Scope
  • Part 4: Value
  • Part 5: Resources
  • Part 6: Risk

Note: Much more detail on creating the Project Health Scorecard and other Project Management topics can be found in my Kindle book “Project Management For The Real World”, available at

https://www.amazon.com/author/lettera