Ground truth and status criteria
Status defined by objective criteria instead of sentiment, stating what green means, what triggers red and what escalation each state demands. Reviews examine evidence instead of colour, and there is more than one channel to reality.
Evidence grade: practice A widely adopted practitioner model with clear provenance.
Use it when
From organisational scope upward, whenever the picture of a programme comes through its reports; whenever status smells wrong.
Where it stops working
Criteria can be gamed like any other measure. The practice depends on visible safety for bad news; without it, the reporting system learns reassurance all over again.
Where the standard uses it
- DE-4Managing scope, risk, and dependencies across workstreamsSeeing the whole, naming the risk, negotiating the boundary.
Used alongside it
- Contract at the boundary practice
- Conway's law practice
- One-way and two-way doors practice
- The pre-mortem practice
Cite this model
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Ground truth and status criteria. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, TEC.ground-truth-and-status-criteria). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/techniques/ground-truth-and-status-criteria