4.3The Traffic Light Dashboard

Executives want to know one thing at a glance: should I be worried? The traffic light model gives them exactly that.

Structure

Status	Meaning	When to Use
GREEN	On track. Quality is within acceptable thresholds. No action needed.	All critical paths tested. Open bugs are minor. Release is on schedule.
YELLOW	At risk. There are concerns that could escalate. Awareness needed.	Some test coverage gaps. A few medium-severity bugs open. Timeline is tight.
RED	Blocked or critical risk. Action required now.	Critical bugs in core flows. Significant untested areas. Data integrity risk.

Example Traffic Light Report

RELEASE QUALITY STATUS -- v3.2.0 (Sprint 47)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

  Payment Flow:     [GREEN]  All scenarios tested, 0 open bugs
  User Registration: [GREEN]  Automated + manual complete
  Search & Browse:  [YELLOW] 2 medium bugs (sorting, pagination)
  Admin Dashboard:  [YELLOW] Performance not yet tested under load
  API Integrations: [RED]    Partner API timeout handling untested,
                             partner sandbox was down 3 days

  OVERALL: [YELLOW] -- Recommend release with conditions
  (see conditional release plan attached)

Why Traffic Lights Work for Executives

• Instant comprehension. No training needed to understand green/yellow/red.
• Action-oriented. Green means "no action." Yellow means "be aware." Red means "we need to talk."
• Drill-down capable. Executives who want details can ask about the yellow and red items. Those who do not can glance and move on.