Research on maturity model

Wikipidia says that “the term maturity relates to the degree of formality and optimization of processes, from ad hoc practices, to formally defined steps, to managed result metrics, to active optimization of the processes.”

Martin Fowler says that “a maturity model is a tool that helps people assess the current effectiveness of a person or group and supports figuring out what capabilities they need to acquire next in order to improve their performance” and that “the true outcome of a maturity model assessment isn’t what level you are but the list of things you need to work on to improve”.

This page offers these core model levels that can be used to create a maturity model:

1. Initial: Beginner stage
2. Repeatable: Proficient stage
3. Defined: Savvy stage
4. Managed: Expert stage
5. Optimizing: Mastery stage

This paper by Jens Poeppelbuss and Maximilian Roeglinger proposes “a pragmatic, yet well-founded framework of general design principles justified by existing literature and grouped according to typical purposes of use.”

This Organisation Capability Maturity Framework hosts an online maturity framework assessment for business organizations.