Strategy Reporting Is Shifting from Progress to “Execution Health”

What’s happening Strategy leaders are quietly moving away from milestone and RAG based reporting toward execution health indicators, metrics that surface friction before delivery slips.

Instead of asking, “Is this initiative on track?” they’re asking, “Is this initiative still executable?”

This shift is showing up across strategy platforms, PMOs, and transformation offices as leaders track things like decision latency, ownership activity, resource lock-in, and adoption, not just progress against plan.

Why it matters Traditional progress reporting is a lagging indicator.

By the time milestones go red:

• decisions have already stalled

• resources are already misallocated

• owners have already disengaged

• momentum is already lost
  

Execution health metrics surface risk weeks or months earlier, when leaders can still intervene cheaply. In volatile environments, that early signal is becoming more valuable than perfect plans.

What to do next week

1. Add one leading indicator to your top 3 initiatives Examples:

   - time since last decision

   - days without owner update

   - % of capacity actually allocated

   - adoption vs. plan

2. Replace one status update with a health check In your next exec review, drop the RAG status and ask:“What would prevent this from delivering in the next 30 days?”

3. Flag silence as a risk Set a simple rule: if an initiative has no owner activity or decision movement for 30 days, it automatically escalates, regardless of reported status.