Following on from my post on watermelon reporting, I wanted to share another, related, phenomenon with you – “green side up” reporting.

This describes the phenomenon where the health of programmes and portfolios is reported more favourably the higher up the organisation the reports are circulated; that is to say that in the project world everything looks green when viewed from above.

As with watermelon reporting, it’s not my expression but I can’t remember where I heard it.

So what are the factors that might lead to this progressive greening of status?

• Programme Managers want to be perceived as being in control of their programmes, so although the programme may contain one or two amber or even red projects, they want to avoid the unwelcome attention of the CxOs, and so they report the programme as green overall;
• The amber or red status of one project is diluted by the green status of other projects in the programme: if a programme comprises say ten projects, how many of these need to be amber or red before the programme overall is considered amber or red?
• As with watermelon reporting, the problem probably really should have been reported (perhaps as amber) some time ago, and to report it as red now would expose that it wasn’t as amber reported before;
• Also as with watermelon reporting, there’s still an opportunity to turn it around before the next report and due and then no-one will need to know anything was ever red, will they?

Leaving aside factors shared with watermelon reporting, which I have covered in a separate post, Green Side Up reporting is a Bad Idea because:

• The organisation’s executives (CxOs) will think that everything is always green (in the same way that VIPs and Royals think that the whole world smells of fresh paint all the time!). This could mean that CxOs only become aware of problems when it is already too late to do anything about them;
• The organisation’s executives (CxOs) will not believe the reports they are receiving.

So what are the alternatives? Here are a few possibilities:

• The RAG status of programmes could be calculated based on some sort of average of the contents (the calculation of which only the PMO will understand, and which in any case will result in all programmes and projects being amber all the time instead of green or red, which doesn’t really help the CxOs);
• The status of programmes and portfolios could be reported in the form of a “RAG pie”, with slices showing the proportions of red, amber and green (more accurate, but not exactly simple!);
• The health status of programmes and portfolios could still be based on the assessment of the programme managers (because they are paid to manage programme-level problems), but the Portfolio PMO could add an exception reporting mechanism that exposes any red projects and provides more detail on these separately so that the CxOs can dig into this if need be.

I think the last one is probably the most practical and pragmatic. What do you think? Have you seen Green Side Up reporting? How is the health of your programmes related to the health of their constituent projects? Do you have any options to add to my list? How do your CxOs stay informed about the real health of their programmes? Let me know in the comments.