Red Light, Green Light

And what happens when a project goes red? Dashboardproponents at GM North America have worked hard to educateproject managers and team members that red doesn't mean"bad," it means "help." "Red means, I need more money ormore people or better business buy-in or a business championor help with a vendor," Clarke explains.

It's not unusual for projects to show a red month or two-andthe dashboard includes a text area where mitigating factorscan be mentioned. But three red months in a row is normallythe outer limit before intervention is necessary, and oncritical projects, a single red can be enough to bring outthe troops.

At one point, the Mid/Lux Windows 95 rollout was redsimultaneously in three different areas: budget, scheduleand risk, Clarke says. The group needed additional funding,additional resources to perform necessary software andhardware upgrades, and additional help with training andmigration from a different group within Information Systems& Services (IS&S).

"Presenting that status in not just one meeting but severalhelped everybody understand the difference between theprogram we planned and the work that was happening on thefront lines," Clarke says. "That red status was a neutralway to communicate that our two groups needed to work moreclosely together."

Frequently, red status triggers a corrective action meetingbetween relevant executives on the project and a CIO fromthe business-unit level or higher up. Mark Thompson,director of planning for GM North America InformationTechnology, recalls one case where a project hit a yellowlight when a supplier wasn't meeting its deliveryschedule. Because the project was considered strategicallycrucial, GM went into immediate alert mode, with thesupplier and other project executives being called into ameeting with the high-ranking CIO for GM NorthAmerica. "That's one meeting everyone aspires never to bein," says Thompson. "It can be very painful. Let's just saythere were some immediate behavior adjustments all the wayaround."