How is the Programme Health score calculated?

Panel responses are scored 4 for yes down to 1 for no, averaged per dimension, and rescaled to 0–100. Dimensions are green at 75 or above and amber from 50. The composite weights strategic health 35%, delivery 45%, and benefits 20%, renormalised when a layer is missing.

Who fills in the Programme Health assessment?

A panel rather than one author — typically the sponsor, the programme manager, workstream leads, and business representatives. Responses are collected by invitation and reported by role, with individual answers never shown.

Can we change the questions?

Yes. The questionnaire is configurable per organisation, so you can add, remove, or reword statements and apply one standard across every project in the portfolio.

How often should we run an assessment?

Monthly is the intended cadence — it lines up with a typical steering cycle and gives a trend line worth reading after about three assessments.

What does high disagreement in a dimension mean?

It means the panel does not share a view of that dimension. The score is flagged rather than averaged away, because a sponsor and a delivery lead answering oppositely is usually the finding worth discussing at the next steering meeting.

Methodology

What is a Programme Health score?

A Programme Health score is a 0–100 measure of whether a transformation is set up to succeed. TransformRadar combines three layers — a strategic panel assessment across six dimensions, weekly delivery RAG, and benefits trajectory — into one composite weighted 35% strategic, 45% delivery, and 20% benefits.

Why a RAG status is not a health score

A weekly RAG tells you what is happening now: budget amber, schedule slipping, two risks escalated. It is a symptom report. It rarely tells you why, and it almost never tells you early.

Programmes do not usually fail because a task slipped. They fail because the steering group had no real decision authority, because the business case stopped being maintained, because nobody assessed the change impact on the roles that had to absorb it. Those conditions are visible months before they show up as a red RAG — but only if someone asks about them systematically.

The Programme Health assessment is that systematic question set, scored, tracked over time, and placed next to the delivery signal so the two can be read together.

The six dimensions

The default questionnaire covers six dimensions. Each is a small set of statements a respondent rates as yes, mostly, sometimes, no, or not applicable. Organisations can edit the questionnaire — add, remove, or reword statements — so the assessment matches how they actually govern.

Governance: Whether the steering group has and uses real decision authority, whether the sponsor is genuinely engaged, whether escalations are resolved in days, and whether the programme has one accountable owner rather than a committee.
Stakeholder engagement: Whether leadership shares an understanding of the business case, whether affected business units have sponsors who advocate internally, and whether resistance is surfaced early rather than buried.
Scope and delivery: Whether scope is documented at a level the team can use, whether out-of-scope is recorded with the same rigour as in-scope, and whether recent changes have been honest about their cost.
Architecture and technology: Whether the architecture is documented well enough to survive team changes, whether major decisions carry written rationale, and whether it supports the operating model after go-live rather than only the build.
Change and adoption: Whether the change impact on each affected role has been assessed, whether training is in the plan with realistic time and budget, and whether the day after go-live is concretely understood.
Value realisation: Whether the business case is actively maintained, whether benefits are tied to named people who will be measured on them, and whether the sponsor would still approve the programme today.

How the score is calculated

Responses are numeric: yes scores 4, mostly 3, sometimes 2, no 1. "Not applicable" is excluded rather than counted as a zero, so an irrelevant question cannot drag a dimension down. Each dimension is averaged across all respondents and rescaled to 0–100, and a dimension is green at 75 or above, amber from 50, and red below that.

Because it is a panel rather than a single author, the assessment also measures disagreement. When responses to a question spread widely, the question is flagged — a dimension where the sponsor answers "yes" and the delivery lead answers "no" is a more useful finding than the average of the two. Per-role breakdowns are only shown once at least two people in that role have responded, so no individual answer is identifiable.

Three layers in one composite

The strategic assessment on its own is a monthly opinion survey. It becomes a health score when it is read against what is actually being delivered and what is actually being realised.

Strategic — 35%: The panel assessment above, run monthly across the six dimensions. Answers whether the programme is set up to succeed.
Delivery — 45%: The weekly status RAG across budget, schedule, scope, and resources, plus slipped tasks and open governance items. Answers whether you are executing against the plan.
Benefits — 20%: The value realisation roll-up: whether the benefits the business case promised are on trajectory, reported on cadence by the people who own them.

Reading the score without over-reading it

The weights renormalise when a layer is missing. A project running only plan and status gets a composite from delivery alone rather than a misleadingly low number, and the interface says which layers contributed.

The number itself is a conversation opener, not a verdict. Its value is in the trend and in the divergence between layers: delivery green while strategic falls is the pattern worth acting on, because it is what a programme looks like a quarter before it goes red. TransformRadar shows the layers side by side over time so that pattern is visible, and leaves the causal narrative to the people who know the programme.

Questions people ask

How is the Programme Health score calculated?: Panel responses are scored 4 for yes down to 1 for no, averaged per dimension, and rescaled to 0–100. Dimensions are green at 75 or above and amber from 50. The composite weights strategic health 35%, delivery 45%, and benefits 20%, renormalised when a layer is missing.
Who fills in the Programme Health assessment?: A panel rather than one author — typically the sponsor, the programme manager, workstream leads, and business representatives. Responses are collected by invitation and reported by role, with individual answers never shown.
Can we change the questions?: Yes. The questionnaire is configurable per organisation, so you can add, remove, or reword statements and apply one standard across every project in the portfolio.
How often should we run an assessment?: Monthly is the intended cadence — it lines up with a typical steering cycle and gives a trend line worth reading after about three assessments.
What does high disagreement in a dimension mean?: It means the panel does not share a view of that dimension. The score is flagged rather than averaged away, because a sponsor and a delivery lead answering oppositely is usually the finding worth discussing at the next steering meeting.

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