Understanding and driving change with maturity models

Systems for managing and improving performance across domains and capabilities are important. Maturity levels are a qualitative indicator for determining how well these systems are themselves performing.

Maturity modelling’s basic premise is that, scored relative to a five point scale, the higher your level or maturity, the better your organisation’s ability to learn lessons and improve in a specific capability area.

Using a five phase model to show how able an organisation, process or system is at achieving continuous improvement in a capability area is nothing new.

Some of the first maturity models were devised for use in IT. They were introduced by the US government during the 1980’s to assess the ability or maturity of IT suppliers. The models looked specifically at how these suppliers managed their software development processes and delivered on contracted commitments.

Despite their outward simplicity, maturity models do deliver results. Organisations regularly quoting 30-70% productivity improvements in business process effectiveness and project delivery efficiency.

In the years since these models came into being, business has changed a lot. Unlike businesses 30 years ago, companies today are more complex and operate in challenging macro-economic and regulatory environments. They are less reliant on individual capabilities and need the ability to respond to change in a much more nuanced way and at a much faster pace.

To be successful they need to manage multiple interactions within and across their ecosystems. Organisations also need to grow and transform. To understand more about how these models can be impactful, read the infographic from ISACA.

Are maturity models still relevant today?

Today’s business climate is complex and, as such, can straightforward five step models really help you stay on track, prioritise and improve? After 30 years do we need to think differently about what we mean by capability maturity and how we apply these models?

For years, maturity models and their assessment processes have been in and out of favour. They came to be seen as proprietary tools built by consultants to assess an organisation’s current state and make recommendations about how to close maturity gaps and generate progress.

Many business leaders came to see maturity models as one dimensional. The tools were often likened to watered-down quality assurance methodologies, targeted at point problems. Often they were used in response to audits, staff surveys or the need to obtain certifications.  

For IT assessment there is a diverse range of maturity models on offer. These are created by advisors, academia, consultants, certification, industry bodies and IT vendors.

Others, focus on:

• Leadership and technical capability
• Building or assessing readiness
• Organisational change
• Digital transformation.

IT and systems development techniques have changed considerably, but more so in recent years. We have also had to change the way we work to enable us to keep up with this increased pace.

The latest digital tooling and automation platforms with in-built IT workflow management and robotic process automation are able to provide sophisticated capabilities such as service management, dev-ops and security.

You might argue that as these tools can be used consistently straight out of the box then you already have a degree of maturity built in. Certainly, we can mature capabilities by automating them and that helps us. But, at the same time, IT’s scope has evolved, it has become more mission critical for businesses and more complex to manage.

As IT becomes increasingly embedded in businesses, senior leaders will ask more questions about our capability to support and exploit it. As the pressure is on IT to respond to interrelated challenges, one of the most important uses of maturity models is to create a common language across our teams.

A recent report by The Economist Intelligence Unit found a strong correlation between digital maturity and an organisation’s ability to weather the unprecedented disruption over the period of the pandemic. Indeed, in that study, business leaders cited digital preparedness as key to their ability to adapt to the changing circumstances.

But digital preparedness isn’t just one thing, it’s a range of integrated capabilities. So, are maturity models more helpful to us in understanding the relationships between levels of maturity across a wider range of capabilities and how they link to a specific strategy, change plan or set of organisational goals? For example, many companies cite being data driven as a key component in being able to weather economic storms.

To be successful you would need to have repeatable processes and systematic ways to manage data, that’s at least half way up the data management maturity scale at level 3. Using a model to help you assess what you need to do to get there is useful. But without adjacent or interlocking capabilities such as analytical thinking or an ability to use data in real time, data management maturity on its own isn’t going to transform you into a data driven company.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you have to get to the highest maturity in everything. Given that many change projects considerably under-deliver, knowing what can be left at level 2 or 3 and where it matters to be at 4 or 5 is likely to be more important.

The value of understanding maturity levels and behaviours is very relevant for some of the most successful digital natives and platform companies. For them maturity modelling is embedded in how they operate. These companies know how the maturity of every aspect of what they do combines together to deliver value to their organisations and customers.

They really understand where they need to be at level 3 or a 5 to facilitate change. They don’t just think about maturity once a year, instead they continuously use these maturity assessment processes to identify and work on areas where there is measurable scope for improvement. They also look at areas they need to develop to be ready to deliver new products and strategies

So, even after 30 years the relevance of these models continues, but how we use them has moved on.

How do you pick a maturity model?

Before you start, it’s important to be clear about what you are trying to understand. What will a higher maturity level enable you to achieve that you couldn’t unlock previously? Consider how, for example, a change in technical or process leadership maturity delivers value for the organisation.

Are you trying to make measurable performance improvements or are you trying to bulk up on a specific capability such as data management as part of a corporate transformation?

As a one-off exercise the models help you to baseline where you are at a point in time. They can also enable you to understand the gap between now and future aspirations.

Where they really add value is if you use them on a regular basis to assess your progress and adapt. This could be useful, not just internally, but for assessing suppliers and customers too.

It’s also important to consider the maturity comparisons you want to explore. Is it other IT functions in general, specific industry peers, an industry body’s viewpoint or are you aiming to upskill or achieve an industry or ISO standard certification?

The models are only as good as the assessment data they use. This means you need to be sure of how precise you want to be with your assessments. Be sure to understand how the assessment data is sourced, its scope and how it is processed. Data often has a designed use, so don’t be tempted to use assessment data generated for other intended purposes.

Many businesses, for example, are transitioning to service-based business models and exploring new markets for their products. Understanding where you are in that journey and how mature your digital capability is month-on-month, compared to your competitors, would require carefully curated assessment data sets.

Also consider who the audience is for the results - for example is it the board, audit committee or technical teams? Some models might be easier to use as part of a change management plan as they help to create a common language. While others may be more credible as they have a link to standards and certifications to support the delivery of strategic investment programmes, retain accreditations or the work of a security oversight committee.

Since no one has yet created a ‘maturity model of maturity models’ and one size very rarely fits all, you might need to use more than one system to get actionable data.

Rather than apply the models as blunt instruments you might consider using them together in the form of an ‘assessment or maturity framework’ to help you to support specific strategies such as:

• Buying and integrating a new company
• A major ERP implementation
• A new strategic partnership
• Understanding your ability to enter a new market.

Taking a framework approach is particularly useful in multi-dimensional or complex areas like digital transformation, where you might need to consider a range of capabilities such as data, security and mindset.

In this situation there are open frameworks you can use and there are companies who can build and calibrate models for your particular journey, or to test out your adaptability against a set of selected strategic scenarios.

The important thing is, whether you use them individually or in a framework, models need to be used as part of an overall plan.

Can you trust maturity models?

The way maturity models work is well established. What’s important is to have faith in the results. So, it’s important that the assessment and comparator data sets are up to date and at the right level of granularity. The data also needs to suitable for your use case, size of company and industry.

It’s a good idea to start small, possibly with maturity assessments in a specific area where it is easier to measure any changes. This is a positive first step as it enables you to build trust in your approach.

To get started, many companies have encouraged teams to decide where and when to run the models themselves. In some situations the conversations the teams had were more important than the results themselves. This can be very successful where teams are engaged in shared initiatives that have a direct link to a major change programme or strategy.

Just like when you introduce any new tool or way of working before you set teams going, consider their maturity as part of their introduction and include some change readiness training. You are likely asking people to look at things from a new perspective and so the results need to be heard and not discounted.

Like many methodologies it’s a structured approach and the value comes in being able to measure results and identify improvements. So, it’s important to consider how you will encourage teams to be motivated to tackle follow-up actions to further improve their work areas.

Could the days be numbered for single capability models in favour of a maturity framework based approach?

Historically, maturity models have been focused on calibrating and improving capability in specific areas such as project management, governance or data management.

In certain scenarios bulking up on capability is an important thing to want to do - particularly if you are trying to quickly scale a business. But where many companies struggle is being able to deliver complex transformations such as pivoting existing businesses to a remote working model, a services-based operating model or introducing rapid prototyping and innovation.

These types of transformations require improvements in a range of interconnected capabilities. Digital transformation is a case in point and many companies struggle with it. The challenge is, transformation isn’t a one-dimensional problem and so there is not a single capability improvement solution.

Is the time right to re-frame maturity models, given this urgent need for multi-faceted change readiness and associated capability maturity? Is it time to consider using the assessment data from a number of models together across talent, operations and organisational management in the form of a frameworks or set of patterns?

Selecting combinations of capabilities and compiling them into an organisational change recipe or an integrated maturity roadmap to better suit our goals as a company is a growing trend. Some research is already going on to that effect.

Youngjin Yoo and Nick Berente are working on a Digital First Maturity Framework (5). They have identified nine capabilities across people, strategy and technology needed to be a digitally savvy company. They have also mapped out what you need to do to achieve each of the 5 levels of maturity in each of them. The idea is that you use it to determine where you have gaps and where you want to invest to gain more value from digital as part of your business strategy overall.

Alan Brown (3) has advocated a similar approach by defining a series of ready to go maturity assessment recipes in his The 5 Patterns of Digitization in Large Established Organizations - Exeter INDEX. These patterns have been designed to address the most common challenges that companies have when thinking about digital maturity and hopefully will help to improve the success of these important initiatives.

So, is a multi-dimensional framework that helps increase agility in our improvement approaches the future of maturity models? Rather than putting lots of effort into achieving maturity level 5 in a certain area do we add more value when we start to understand the interconnections between capabilities across our businesses, core processes and value chains more deeply?

For you

BCS members can read the very latest F-TAG technical briefings and reports.

We get to understand where it’s okay to be a 3 and adopt the same standard approach as most companies for our business, and we learn how creating top tier capability in an adjacent capability area is definitely going to differentiate us. Imagine you could compile, let’s call it a ‘maturity orchestration framework’ on the fly complete with actions and plans.

Such a tailor-made framework would then help you to measure where you are and run a range of scenarios to simulate the impact of a range of changes and the outcomes they would deliver. Could this be what we meant all along as the composable or adaptive organisation? And could simple tools like maturity models in a framework help us to get there?

Our advice going forward

Even after 30 years there is still mileage in these relatively simple tools. To be successful, you must be clear about what you are trying to achieve. You need also to research the models which are available to you.

Choose one for your target use case and plan how you will communicate the processes and implement the subsequent changes.

For the best results, we would recommend treating a model’s application a change project in itself. Try and avoid deploying a model as a one-off exercise. Also, use them periodically to keep your capabilities fit for purpose.

But, if it’s transformational change you are looking to achieve – possibly in a key capability area or across the whole of your company - think about using them in combination as maturity patterns or a multi-maturity frameworks.

They might be a longstanding approach but used in combination these models can be very powerful. With a bit of fresh thinking there could be another 30 years of life left in them.