RAG, confidence and health

Mode: reference.

The Investment Health dashboard rolls up a project’s registers into a small set of health indicators. Some are derived deterministically from the underlying data (so the headline health cannot be gamed by editing the indicator directly); others are manual (a self-report is itself the governance act). This page defines each value and how it is produced.

RAG values

The RAG enum (VALID_RAGS) is:

Value	Meaning
Green	On track.
Amber	At risk.
Red	Off track.
Blue	Selectable status value (e.g. complete). Not emitted by the deterministic derivations below.
None	Not applicable / insufficient data to derive.

Investment Health cards

The dashboard shows five RAG cards. Four are derived deterministically; the Overall card is manual.

Card	Source	Derivation
Cost	Budget totals	Deterministic — see below.
Schedule	Work packages	Deterministic — see below.
Scope	Change register	Deterministic — see below.
Risk	R/I/O register	Deterministic — see below.
Overall	PM	Manual — user-selected; not computed from the others.

Note

During Initiation, derived pillars mute their RAGs until baselines are locked — pre-baseline variance is treated as setup, not drift.

Cost RAG

Derived from project budget totals (deriveCostRag).

Result	Condition
Green	forecast ≤ baseline × 1.05
Amber	forecast ≤ baseline × 1.15
Red	forecast > baseline × 1.15
None	no baseline set (baseline ≤ 0 or forecast not finite)

Schedule RAG

Derived from work packages that have both a planned end date and a forecast end date (deriveScheduleRag). Slip = forecast end − planned end, in days.

Result	Condition
Green	no work package slips (max slip ≤ 0 days)
Amber	any work package slips by ≤ 15 days
Red	any work package slips by > 15 days
None	no work package has both dates set

Scope RAG

Derived from the change register, evaluated over the current reporting period (the period length comes from the project’s reporting cadence) (deriveScopeRag).

Result	Condition
Green	zero Approved changes in the current period
Amber	1–2 Approved in the period, or any Proposed change older than 14 days
Red	3 or more Approved in the period
None	no changes recorded

Risk RAG

Counts open downside Risks whose impact × likelihood ≥ 15 (deriveRiskRag). Opportunities (upside) are excluded — they belong on the R/I/O exposure card and lift Outcome confidence, not the Risk RAG. Items with no direction (and legacy Threat records) are treated as downside Risks.

Result	Condition
Green	0 high-impact open Risks
Amber	1–2 high-impact open Risks
Red	3 or more high-impact open Risks
None	no Risks recorded at all

Confidence axes

Confidence is self-reported by the PM (manual), additive to RAG. There are two axes, each taking the same enum (VALID_CONFIDENCE):

Axis	Question it answers
Outcome confidence	Will this still deliver the outcome we funded it for?
Adoption confidence	Will the change actually be adopted?

Confidence value
High
Modest
Low
Unknown

Note

Confidence is manual by design. The act of a PM declaring confidence is the governance act — it is not calculated from the registers.

Reporting-cadence staleness

A project status is stale when it has not been updated within its reporting cadence (isStatusStale). A missing or unparseable last-updated timestamp counts as stale.

Cadence	Period
Daily	24 hours
Weekly	7 days
Monthly	30 days

Staleness drives the dashboard’s stale-update banner and the portfolio overdue-reporting check (see get-portfolio-overdue). Cadence is a recommendation, not a stipulation — the signal surfaces on the dashboard; nothing is emailed.