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