What changed?
- 07/2026: Published explicit green, amber, and red health criteria.
- 07/2026: Added a five-part update format and recovery guidance.
What is project health status?
Project health status is a concise assessment of whether a project can meet its intended outcome under current scope, timing, dependencies, and risk. Project health combines delivery evidence with accountable judgment; a completion percentage alone cannot explain confidence.
A project can be 80 percent complete and still be red if the remaining dependency blocks launch. A project can also be 20 percent complete and green if progress, timing, and risk match the plan.
What do green, amber, and red project health mean?
Green means the project can meet its current outcome without material intervention. Amber means a known risk threatens the outcome and has a credible response. Red means the current plan cannot meet the outcome without a decision, scope change, timing change, or additional capacity.
| Health | Decision criterion | Required update |
|---|---|---|
| Green | Milestones, scope, and dependencies remain inside the working plan. | State what moved and name the next milestone. |
| Amber | A material risk may affect scope, timing, quality, or outcome. | Name the risk, owner, mitigation, and decision date. |
| Red | The current plan cannot meet the intended outcome. | Request a specific decision and show recovery options. |
What should a project health update include?
A project health update should include the current state, evidence, change since the previous update, primary risk, and next action. Keep the update short enough to scan and specific enough that a stakeholder can make the requested decision.
- Health: green, amber, or red under the documented criteria.
- Evidence: milestone movement, issue flow, dependency status, or validation result.
- Change: what became more or less certain since the previous update.
- Risk: the single risk most likely to alter scope, time, quality, or outcome.
- Next action: owner, decision, and date.
How often should project health be updated?
Update project health at a fixed weekly cadence for active projects and immediately after a material risk or decision changes the plan. A stale green status is worse than no status because readers assume someone recently reviewed it.
Use the same weekday and owner for routine updates. The cadence should match project speed: a daily launch room may need daily health, while a low-risk internal project may need a biweekly update.
Retain health history. The sequence shows whether risk is improving, oscillating, or repeatedly hidden until a deadline.
What is the difference between project progress and health?
Project progress measures completed work against a defined scope, while project health judges whether the outcome remains achievable under current risk and constraints. Teams need both because neither number can replace the other.
Cadylo computes project progress from connected issue completion and stores project health updates separately. The split keeps factual work movement and accountable judgment visible at the same time.
Questions
Frequently asked questions about project delivery.
Can a project be green when it is behind schedule?
A project can be green after a schedule change only when the new timing is an approved part of the current plan. If the original target still applies and the project cannot meet it, the health should be amber or red.
Who should set project health?
The project lead should own the health assessment and evidence. Team members should challenge missing risks, but one named person must be accountable for publishing the current status and requesting decisions.
Should project health be calculated automatically?
Automation can flag overdue milestones, stalled issues, or rising cycle time, but project health still needs accountable judgment. A formula cannot know whether a dependency has a credible workaround or whether the intended outcome changed.
What makes a project health update untrustworthy?
A project health update is untrustworthy when it has no criteria, evidence, owner, date, or change history. Repeated green statuses followed by a sudden red status usually indicate that risks were not surfaced when they became material.