Methods and systems of measuring progressive multilateral dysfunction of a system are provided. Methods of measuring progressive multilateral dysfunction of a system include, obtaining a plurality of different health measures for the system, defining a multidimensional space with one dimension corresponding to each health measures and defining a point in the multidimensional space representing the values of the health measures. Further the method includes, comparing the position of the defined point to a predefined trajectory through said multidimensional space representing progressive multilateral dysfunction of the system where the measure of the progressive multilateral dysfunction of the system is calculated from the position of the point relative to the predefined trajectory.