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Very easy. Most programs will simply recompile and run, or require few changes. We believe that any application that uses the standard development environment and Object kits provided by NeXT should simply compile and run. Only applications that use architecture specific features or data formats, will require additional time to port. Several developers have already ported applications to NEXTSTEP/Intel. Appsoft Draw simply recompiled and ran, Lighthouse Concurrence took 3 hours, other programs took 1/2 a day to 2 days, and this was all on a very early release of NEXTSTEP/Intel 3.1!
Some applications just will refuse to compile, because they are still based on the old 2.0 headers etc. These applications are really rare now and may get ported very easily too, by changing the include path in your developer package.
Other applications require additional header files and libraries to properly compile and link. These applications are mostly based on the MiscKit or MusicKit and other PD-Kits. You need to install these Kits first to compile these programs.
With the shipping of OpenStep this might change, because it will be possible to produce shared libraries with the NeXT Developer package. This will enable you to not install the complete Kit, but only the shared library and will also reduce your binary noticeable.