How to communicate RAG status effectively to stakeholders

RAG status reporting is one of the most widely used techniques in project management. It is also one of the most misunderstood.

A simple Red, Amber or Green traffic light indicator can help stakeholders quickly understand whether work is on track. However, without careful communication, RAG status can cause confusion, defensiveness, or false reassurance. A green project can still be heading for trouble (watermelon projects, anyone?), and a red project is not necessarily failing.

This article looks at how to communicate RAG status clearly and professionally, so stakeholders understand what the status really means and what, if anything, they need to do next.

Why effective RAG communication matters

The purpose of RAG status reporting for stakeholders is not to make the project manager look good (although that’s a nice bonus, if you’re the only person in the team reporting Green each week – as long as you are being honest about it), or to avoid difficult conversations.

The RAG status is to support decision-making as well as showing project health. When you’re a senior leader looking at a big list of projects, or risks or issues, or whatever, RAG helps you prioritize where to spend your time.

Effective RAG communication helps you:

• Build trust through transparency
• Surface issues early, while there are still options
• Focus attention on what matters most
• Enable timely decisions and interventions.

How to explain RAG status

RAG status does not mean the same thing to everyone. That’s why the PMO should have clear definitions of what the colors mean.

Use my RAG status definitions if you don’t have your own.

Make sure that the people who are reading the statuses understand what they mean. This is especially important if you have different RAG ratings for different project components, that then all aggregate into an overall project (or program or portfolio) status.

Project components could be:

• Budget and financial management
• Delivery and schedule
• Benefits
• People and resource management

Typically, I wouldn’t include Risk as a component, because risk ratings can be scored separately. You can have a project that is Green but still high risk.

Common stakeholder groups receiving status reviews include:

• Senior leaders or sponsors, who are interested in outcomes, risk exposure and decisions required
• Delivery teams, who need clarity on priorities, blockers and next steps
• External clients or partners, who are concerned with confidence, progress and expectations

Each group needs a different level of detail for project status communication, and a different emphasis. The color might be the same, but the message should not be. When you’re explaining why your project is Red to your CIO, talk about what action needs to be done to get back to Green.

Read next: How to Get Back to Green on a Red Project

RAG reporting best practices

Clarity and conciseness

Your RAG status should be unambiguous. Avoid hedging language such as “mostly green” or “amber but fine”. If it is amber, say so, and explain why.

Communicating RAG status in a good way answers three questions:

• What is the current status?
• Why is it this color?
• What are you doing about it?

Use the same definitions in your risk management reporting or other key performance indicators so there is consistency.

Visual aids and dashboards

RAG works best when it is visible and consistent, so it absolutely should be in your project scorecard and dashboards.

Project reports, summary tables and simple charts help stakeholders orient themselves quickly. Avoid overcrowding visuals with excessive commentary; use supporting notes to add context where required.

You can also include a column in a project timeline slide to show RAG ratings per workstream or swimlane. Take it further and use it for resource allocation on tasks as well!

Consistency of format

Changing definitions, thresholds or formats week to week undermines confidence, which goes back to what I said earlier about having PMO-agreed definitions of what it means to be Green.

For example, unapproved scope changes might make a project Amber for the project schedule element of the work, but everything else might be Green. In this scenario, you’d be waiting for the steering group to approve the scope change, and then you’ll be back to Green.

Consistency of cadence

While real-time data is awesome, unless you’ve got software doing the heavy lifting for you, you won’t have automatically changing RAG statuses.

Align your RAG reporting to your reporting frequency. For me, that’s once a week. If a project is Green but falling into the Amber zone, flag that before it happens to give stakeholders the heads up.

Communicating RAG status to senior management

Senior stakeholders are not looking for operational detail. They want to understand impact and choices.

When reporting RAG status upwards:

• Lead with the headline color
• Explain the business or strategic impact
• Be explicit about decisions, support or trade-offs required and the action plans going forward.

Executive summaries are particularly effective. One or two well-structured paragraphs are often more useful than a long narrative buried in a status report.

For example, an Amber status might be framed around schedule risk, cost exposure, or dependency management, rather than task-level issues.

A Red project might be Red because benefits are underperforming, not because there is an issue with delivery.

Engaging external clients with RAG reporting

With external stakeholders, RAG status plays a strong role in trust and confidence.

Transparency is important, but so is proportionality. Clients do not need every internal issue, but they do need to know when something could affect outcomes.

Be really careful about reporting Red to external stakeholders – you just know they are going to get on the phone to someone really senior at your company, so make sure you’ve got all your internal stakeholders aware of the facts before you share that news with externals.

Good practice includes:

• Pairing RAG status with reassurance and mitigation actions (if you’re telling them the project is Amber/Yellow or Red)
• Avoiding surprises by socializing issues before formal reporting
• Managing expectations by explaining what the color means in practice – ideally you would have shared this at the point you started reporting, and include the thresholds for each color in every report as a key.

A Red status, when handled professionally, can actually strengthen a relationship if it is accompanied by clear options and a recovery plan.

Proactive engagement strategies

RAG status should support conversations, not replace them.

Use proactive engagement to bring the status to life:

• Regular check-ins or briefings to discuss changes in status
• Open channels for questions and clarification
• Collaborative problem-solving sessions for amber or red areas

We’re looking for stakeholders to feel involved in resolving issues, and kept close to developments as they happen.

Watermelon projects

Clear RAG reporting and communication helps you avoid ‘watermelon’ status, where your project is Green on the outside but Red inside.

If that happens too often, you’ll find that stakeholders stop believing the status indicators and challenge even Green status as it won’t feel reasonable or realistic. And that’s a lot more work for you.

Your next steps

If your current RAG reporting feels performative or unhelpful, start small.

You could:

• Revisit and clarify your RAG definitions with stakeholders.
• Add a short narrative explaining “why” and “what next”.
• Adjust your reporting style for different audiences.

Over time, effective RAG communication becomes less about colors and more about confident, transparent leadership.