Our company has started implementing a “Project Dashboard” template. I would define this as a list of projects indicating their overall and detailed status. Some of the details would include whether or not the project is on-time, within budget and meeting target milestones.

Information, if untimely, is useless. Top management uses the information from the Dashboard to act or react, but if some issues are reported late, then there is a risk that that problem will have dire consequences. Projects then become difficult to manage or salvage.

The status being reported in a project also needs to be truthful. It might be great if a project appears ok in the Dashboard but when meetings are being held, and the project already turns out to be delayed, then the Dashboard failed to serve its purpose.

The Dashboard should not be a tool for finger pointing or bragging. Instead, project managers should see it as a tool for transparency and if one project is starting to bleed, it is an opportunity for more senior project managers to help out the juniors having problems. Risk prevention and minimization should be a collective effort.

And help does not always need to be announced with guns blazing and bands marching, stopping everything and holding a meeting to scrutinize every wrong turn the project has made. Sometimes, it comes in the form of a simple “lunch out” or coffee break with the project manager with a problem, exchanging ideas on how to resolve the problem, and encouraging that PM that he can resolve the existing issues. An assurance of confidence can lift a junior PM’s spirits in times when everything around him seems crashing down.