Project Health Check
Purpose
Assess the current health of a project from the SharePoint content available to the user. Review project documents and, when available, structured SharePoint lists such as milestones, risks, actions, decisions, and deliverables.
The skill must produce an evidence-based health assessment. Never invent project facts, dates, owners, statuses, or missing documents.
Before Starting
- Determine the project scope from the user's selection, current SharePoint location, or prompt.
- Use the selected files and relevant project content available on the current SharePoint site.
- Prefer current, authoritative project artifacts over older drafts.
- If several project areas are present and the intended project is ambiguous, ask the user which project to assess.
- If a project reporting date is explicitly provided, use it. Otherwise use the current date.
- Do not require every source type below. Work with the information that is available and report coverage gaps.
Preferred Sources
Look for evidence in these source types when available:
- Project charter, project brief, or initiation document
- Current status report
- Milestone or project plan
- Risk register
- Action / issue register
- Decision register
- Deliverables or document register
- Meeting minutes and steering committee notes
- Other project documents that contain dates, commitments, blockers, owners, or decisions
Structured lists should be treated as primary sources for the facts they own. For example, use a Risk Register for risk status when one is available rather than inferring all risks from narrative documents.
Output Structure
Produce the result in this order.
1. Project Health
State one overall status:
- GREEN — project is broadly on track; no material issue needs management attention.
- AMBER — one or more material concerns require attention, but recovery appears achievable.
- RED — a critical condition threatens delivery or requires immediate management action.
- UNKNOWN — available evidence is insufficient for a reliable health assessment.
Then give a one-sentence explanation.
2. Health Summary
Use exactly these five bullet lines. Do not use a Markdown table because citation markers inserted by the host can break table rendering.
- Schedule & milestones — GREEN / AMBER / RED / UNKNOWN: evidence-based assessment
- Risks & issues — GREEN / AMBER / RED / UNKNOWN: evidence-based assessment
- Actions — GREEN / AMBER / RED / UNKNOWN: evidence-based assessment
- Decisions & dependencies — GREEN / AMBER / RED / UNKNOWN: evidence-based assessment
- Documentation & governance — GREEN / AMBER / RED / UNKNOWN: evidence-based assessment
3. Key Findings
Summarize the most important findings. Prefer 3–7 items and prioritize by business impact.
4. Management Attention
List only the items that need management action or awareness. For each item include:
- What needs attention
- Why it matters
- Owner, if explicitly known
- Due date, if explicitly known
- Recommended next action
5. Evidence and Coverage
State:
- Main sources used
- Important project areas for which evidence should already exist at the current reporting point but no reliable evidence was found
- Any assumptions or ambiguities that reduce confidence
Do not report a missing source type merely because it is common in project management. Do not call out a budget report, issue register, resource plan, or similar artifact unless the project says it is required/relevant or the user explicitly requested that dimension.
Give a confidence level: High, Medium, or Low.
Step 1: Establish Project Context
Identify, when available:
- Project name
- Project manager
- Sponsor
- Start date
- Target completion date
- Current reporting period
- Main objectives and deliverables
Do not fail the health check if some of these values are missing. Record missing context as a governance or coverage observation only when it is material.
Step 2: Review Schedule and Milestones
Determine the status of significant milestones and delivery dates.
Classify Schedule & milestones as:
GREEN
- No material milestone is overdue.
- Near-term milestones appear achievable.
- No credible evidence indicates schedule slippage.
AMBER
Use AMBER when one or more of these conditions is supported by evidence:
- A significant milestone is overdue but recovery is plausible.
- A milestone due soon is explicitly at risk.
- A dependency may cause delay.
- Current reporting states that schedule recovery or mitigation is required.
RED
Use RED when one or more of these conditions is supported by evidence:
- A critical milestone has been missed with material delivery impact.
- The target completion date is no longer credible.
- A critical-path dependency is blocked with no viable mitigation.
- The current status report explicitly identifies schedule as critical/off track.
If no meaningful schedule information exists, use UNKNOWN.
Schedule date wording
Distinguish date concepts precisely:
- Overdue by N days = reporting/current date minus planned due date, only when the item is incomplete.
- Forecast delay / forecast variance of N days = forecast completion date minus planned due date.
- Never describe forecast variance as the number of days an item is currently overdue.
- An item due on the reporting/current date is due today, not overdue.
- A future date is not overdue.
Example: if a milestone was due 10 September, today is 15 September, and forecast completion is 22 September, say "5 days overdue and forecast to finish 12 days later than planned."
Step 3: Review Risks and Issues
Evaluate open risks and active issues. Consider severity, probability, impact, mitigation, ownership, and age where available.
Classify Risks & issues as:
GREEN
- No open high/critical risk or major unresolved issue is identified.
- Material risks have owners and credible mitigations.
AMBER
- At least one high risk exists but has a plausible mitigation.
- A material issue exists but recovery is in progress.
- A significant risk lacks a complete owner, mitigation, or target date.
RED
- A critical risk or issue threatens a key project objective.
- A high-impact issue has no credible mitigation.
- Multiple high risks combine to threaten delivery.
- An issue has already invalidated a key project commitment.
If no reliable risk or issue evidence exists, use UNKNOWN.
Step 4: Review Actions
Evaluate open actions from registers, minutes, and status reports.
Classify Actions as:
GREEN
- No material action is overdue.
- Critical actions have owners and due dates.
AMBER
- One or more important actions are overdue.
- A material action is missing an owner or target date.
- Several open actions show signs of execution delay.
RED
- A critical overdue action blocks a milestone, decision, release, or mitigation.
- Repeatedly overdue actions materially threaten project delivery.
If no reliable action evidence exists, use UNKNOWN.
Step 5: Review Decisions and Dependencies
Review unresolved decisions and important internal or external dependencies.
Classify Decisions & dependencies as:
GREEN
- No material decision is overdue or blocking progress.
- Critical dependencies appear controlled.
AMBER
- A decision is overdue or approaching a date where delay will affect delivery.
- A significant dependency is unresolved but has a manageable mitigation.
RED
- An overdue decision or dependency is actively blocking a critical milestone.
- A required decision can no longer be delayed without material impact.
If no reliable evidence exists, use UNKNOWN.
Step 6: Review Documentation and Governance
Evaluate whether key project artifacts are present, current, and internally consistent.
Only identify a document as missing when:
- A project document/register explicitly defines it as required, or
- The user supplied an expected-document checklist.
Do not assume that a generic project methodology automatically applies.
Classify Documentation & governance as:
GREEN
- Required project artifacts found in the reviewed scope appear current enough for the reporting period.
- No material contradiction between authoritative sources is detected.
AMBER
- A required artifact is overdue and the expected evidence is not present.
- A required artifact for a current or completed governance gate is missing, stale, materially incomplete, or contradictory.
- A required future artifact is credibly at risk because prerequisite work, preparation, approval, ownership, or scheduling is missing or delayed.
- Owners, review dates, or other key governance information needed for an upcoming gate are incomplete.
Treatment of future deliverables
Do not classify a future required deliverable as missing, deficient, or a coverage gap merely because its final evidence does not yet exist.
Evaluate future deliverables according to their delivery context:
- Expected / not yet due: Informational only. Do not lower Documentation & governance solely because final evidence is not yet present.
- Due soon and preparation is expected: Assess whether preparation, prerequisites, ownership, scheduling, or draft evidence indicates that delivery is on track.
- At risk before due date: Use AMBER only when there is concrete evidence that the deliverable may not be ready for its required gate.
- Past due: If required evidence is still absent, normally use AMBER; use RED only when the missing evidence materially blocks a critical gate or project objective.
- Required for a current/completed gate: Missing required evidence is a governance deficiency even if another date field is ambiguous.
When a Deliverables Register identifies expected file/evidence, use it to determine what the project requires, but interpret Status, DueDate, Gate, prerequisite actions, and related project evidence together. A Not Started or In Progress status for a future deliverable is not automatically a problem.
Example: a Support Handover due one month from now should not be reported as missing simply because the final handover document does not yet exist. A Security Review due in two weeks may warrant AMBER if project evidence shows that its review date is still unconfirmed and the scheduling action is nearly due.
RED
- Missing or unreliable governance evidence materially prevents control of the project.
- Required approval or governance documentation is absent for a critical project stage.
If required documentation cannot be determined, use UNKNOWN rather than inventing requirements.
Step 7: Determine Overall Project Health
Use the following precedence:
- RED if any area is RED and the condition materially threatens a key project objective, target date, compliance obligation, or major deliverable.
- Otherwise AMBER if any area is AMBER.
- Otherwise GREEN if all assessed areas are GREEN.
- Use UNKNOWN if evidence is too incomplete to support GREEN, AMBER, or RED with confidence.
Do not mark the overall project RED solely because one area is UNKNOWN.
Step 8: Generate Recommendations
Generate focused recommendations that follow directly from the findings.
Recommendations must:
- Be actionable.
- Name the affected milestone, risk, action, decision, or document when known.
- Reuse explicit owners and due dates when available.
- Never create fictional owners or dates.
- Prioritize recovery and decision-making over generic project-management advice.
Step 9: Generate Standalone HTML Report
After completing and validating the Project Health Check, generate a standalone HTML webpage containing the final management report.
This is a presentation step only. The HTML report must represent the already completed and validated assessment. Do not recalculate, reinterpret, or change the health status while creating the webpage.