"Green" is the least trustworthy status on a project!

On every team I've been on, status colors get gamed before they get reported. "Green" often doesn't mean on track. It means "I don't want the conversation that comes with yellow." Nobody wants to be the one yellow in a room full of green, so people hold the line until they can't.

So the update tells you how people feel about being judged that week, not where the work actually is. And when something finally flips to red, it's usually been quietly red for a while. You just find out on the week it's too late to help.

I watched a project sit green for a month and slip anyway. Every individual read was technically defensible, and nobody wanted to be the first to say the quiet part.

For people who run teams: has anything actually helped you find out a project is slipping before the status is willing to admit it?