Amberguity: Why Traffic Light Reports Leave Projects in the Dark

No, it's not a typo. Amberguity is the silent saboteur of project clarity—a term we use to describe the ambiguity caused by the overuse of amber in traffic light status reports.

If you’ve ever stared at a project dashboard full of amber lights and still walked into a crisis you didn’t see coming, you already know what we mean.

Traffic lights are signals, not the destination

The Problem with Amber

In the world of project and risk reporting, the red-amber-green (RAG) system is everywhere. It's simple, visual, and familiar. But here's the catch: it's not how traffic lights actually work.

On the road, amber is a fleeting signal—a brief moment between stop and go. It’s a transition, not a destination. It tells drivers, "Prepare to stop or start." It implies imminent change.

In projects, however, amber has become something else entirely.

Instead of signalling change, amber has become a comfort zone—a catch-all for uncertainty, delays, or soft concerns we don’t want to escalate. It’s the status that says, “Something’s off… but not off enough to call red.” So, projects stall in amber. They sit there for weeks or months. And stakeholders, lulled into a false sense of control, assume things are "mostly fine."

Until they’re not.

Amber as a Mask

The danger of Amberguity is that it masks real problems. It gives teams and sponsors a way to acknowledge issues without taking action. It creates the illusion of oversight without true visibility. It’s “not-as-red-as-red” reporting—and it quietly undermines decision-making.

When amber becomes a parking lot for problems, risks get buried, urgency gets diluted, and bad news arrives late—so it is a blow up rather than just another issue to manage.

So Why Use It At All?

It's time we rethink the RAG model altogether. What if we stopped treating red as failure and started treating it as what it truly is: a signal to act? What if we recognised amber as a transition, not a permanent home? What if our reporting frameworks were built to surface clarity, not hide discomfort?

Moving Beyond Amberguity

At Gluestep, we help organizations move past the limits of RAG status. There is no Amber in Gluestep. We believe in oversight that’s real-time, contextual, and action-oriented—not driven by color codes, but by insight.

Because ambiguity doesn't belong in leadership. And amber shouldn’t be the place where projects go to hide.

Ready to see your projects more clearly? Let’s talk.