There is no one model fits all for maturity assessment. Maturity model is a powerful technique that can be leveraged by organizations to help assess themselves against external and internal benchmarks. If an executive starts reading a report, he might lose his interest in 15 minutes. Rather than having the stakeholders go through the complete report, a quantitative assessment that says 3.5 against risk governance can help them understand where the organization or division stands.

Where to get one?

If there is a maturity model already put by your governance division, the same can be dusted and customized to make it more contextual and usable. The other option is to pick any vendor maturity assessment or the one from DAMA, EDM which might require some level of customization to fit your organization.

I have created quite some maturity models for Data Governance and other business areas and the thoughts expressed below are musings from my experience.

When should I create a maturity model and How?

A Data Governance Strategy defines how data governance initiatives will be defined, funded, governed and rooted into enterprise operations. It also defines the business value that needs to be realized from the outcomes on reaching milestones. The governance strategy should also define how the organization will assess, define, plan, ope-rationalize, monitor and measure the data governance programs. The maturity model is a prime technique if put to consistent use can assist you in the definition, planning, monitoring, measurement and communication of the progress.

While performing a strategy analysis for Governance related dimensions like data quality, the current state of the organization is assessed by using -

1)     Questionnaires and surveys sent to relevant stakeholders based on the impact, Influence, Knowledge, Interest and Attitude towards data quality. While, the later factors can also be assessed by using the same surveys and workshops.

2)     Facilitating workshops with executive teams and senior leadership to align with organizational goals.

3)     Meeting with functions that need to be on-boarded to the governance program like Risk and Compliance which provide cross functional support.

Once the gaps are identified, they are filled with existing or additional capabilities like a need for “central profiling service”, “data delivery service” that are required to realize required outcomes say “Achieve 80% accuracy, Validity in CRM”.

A business capability analysis is also performed where the target state capabilities are assessed for Business Value, Performance Gaps and Risks. The required capabilities which encompass people, process, technology and culture are outlined in the roadmaps. Each dimension can have its own roadmap; say Data quality has its own roadmap for setting up service and ope-rationalize.

How to use the feedback to improve the models and assessment?

You can use the nuances from the strategy analysis, capability analysis, assessment plan and operating model KPIs to quote a few to create or improvise the maturity model. There are external and internal benchmarking standards available in the industry that an organization can embrace to its full use. I have put a comparison on each of these models in the attached picture and how they can provide you with a better perceptive.

What various Governance models emphasize on?

1)     Process and the nature of the outcomes with each of the process states

2)     Adoption by People, Process and technology

3)     Implementation of capabilities along with Risk and related Benefits

4)     Perceived data value from non-monetization to Monetization data

5)     Data being traversed from being a transactional asset to an enterprise asset

6)     Implementation of Org structure, Policy, Lineage, Metadata, Funding and culture change

Common Challenges to overcome

1)     The outcomes from the periodic assessment should be used to assess the organization against the maturity model.

2)     The maturity model on completion needs to be shared with the relevant stakeholders who have been a part of the assessment

3)     The assessment plan should have a combination of qualitative and quantitative assessment aspects.

4)     The maturity models need to be used at regular intervals to understand the gaps as per the strategy and roadmap

5)     These gaps should be used as a feedback mechanism to strategy analysis and planning.

6)     Change in strategy, priorities, milestones and measures should be equally reflected in the maturity model.