What Your Dashboard Hides
Green doesn't mean good. Red doesn't mean action. And yellow means everyone's hoping you don't ask questions.
The Lie of Red-Yellow-Green
Green
"On Track"
Often means:
"We're not asking hard questions yet. The threshold for 'off track' hasn't been breached—even if we're trending toward it."
Yellow
"At Risk"
Often means:
"We've known about this for weeks. It's now big enough that we can't pretend it's not there. But we're not asking for help yet."
Red
"Off Track"
Often means:
"It's been red for a while internally. We just finally admitted it. Your options are now limited."
What RAG Status Can't Show You
Velocity Trends
The project is "green" but the team is slowing down week over week. By the time it turns yellow, the root cause has been active for months.
Hidden Dependencies
Project A is green. Project B is green. But they share a dependency that neither team is tracking—and both are about to hit it.
Team Health
The status is green but two key engineers are interviewing elsewhere. When they leave, the project goes red overnight.
True Cost Trajectory
Budget is "green" because we're measuring spend, not burn rate. At current pace, we'll exceed budget—but not until next quarter.
The Deeper Problem
Threshold Gaming
People learn where the thresholds are. They optimize to stay just above the "yellow" line—even if that means the project is actually struggling.
Lagging Indicators
By the time a metric triggers a color change, the underlying issue has been active for weeks. You're seeing the symptom, not the cause.
Siloed Views
Each project has its own dashboard. Cross-project patterns and risks? You'd have to notice them yourself—and you don't have time.
Human Interpretation
Someone decided this is "yellow" and that is "green." Their judgment, their bias, their career considerations all factor in.
Go Beneath the Colors
SlideStrike analyzes raw project data directly—no thresholds, no gaming, no interpretation layers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about seeing beyond the dashboard
QWhat's wrong with RAG (Red-Amber-Green) status reporting?
RAG status is a lagging indicator that hides nuance. By the time something turns red, the underlying issue has been active for weeks. Plus, people learn to game thresholds—staying just above "yellow" even when the project is struggling.
QHow does SlideStrike go beyond dashboard colors?
SlideStrike analyzes raw data for trends, anomalies, and patterns—not just threshold breaches. It spots velocity drops, hidden dependencies, and cost trajectories before they trigger status changes.
QCan I still use my existing dashboards?
Absolutely. SlideStrike complements your dashboards by providing the deeper analysis they can't. Think of it as the second layer: dashboards show what happened, SlideStrike shows why and what's coming.
QHow do I know if my dashboard is hiding problems?
If you've ever been surprised by a project suddenly going from "green" to "emergency," your dashboard is hiding problems. The data was there—it just wasn't surfaced until it crossed an arbitrary threshold.
Skip the color-coded comfort.
Get the real story from your data.