Maturity Models - Literature review Example

Maturity model introduction

Organisations want to develop and implement effective methods and processes for managing their businesses efficiently. Maturity model facilitates the organisations in improving their business operations by developing best management practices (Duffy, 2001). Maturity model defines a maturity level by which the companies try to achieve for getting several benefits (Saco, 2008). All the big companies around the world are concerned with their quality of work, cost, performance, delivery of products and services on time etc. The firms are developing many new policies and plans for enhancing their position in the market. Competition in different industrial segments is increasing day by day. For this reason, most of the companies are implementing maturity model for shaping up their business processes (Jentsch, Riedel, & Mueller, 2012). In many cases, the organisations are not able to look after different organisational process effectively. Maturity model helps the business to improve its different stages of operations (Gottschalk and Solli-Sæther, 2006). The maturity level of a company depends on the business framework of the company. The internal and external activities of the organisations are controlled by maturity model. Companies also implement different software for building strong relationship with the customers and stakeholders (Skulmoski, 2001); this is one of the important parts of the model (Diakou & Kokkinaki, 2015). The model also benefits the firms in communicating different ideas and knowledge to the people. Financial, HR, administration and different other systems of the business are improved by implementing this model (Jentsch, Riedel, & Mueller, 2012). Various stages are involved in maturity model, which facilitate a company in growing and developing its business in different aspects. Both public and private companies use this model (Duffy, 2001). Different processes of the company like its supply chain, as well as networking, and risk management, among others, can be managed efficiently by using this model.

The multistage models that include the human need hierarchy models among others have driven the maturity models concepts (Kuznets, 1965). These models have resulted from organizational IT progressions that have been prompted by global economic growth. For instance, according to Nolan‟s (1973, 1979) stage theory, the staged hypothesis has contributed to numerous research works relating to IS domain. The empirical validity of maturity models has been subjected to immense criticism (King and Kraemer, 1984; Prananto et al., 2003). However, according to Solli-Sæther and Gottschalk, (2010), the principles of the designed have been widely adopted thereby forming the basis of several maturity model designs. For instance, the modification of the design/concept led to the late 1980s emergence of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) that has become the most popular maturity model (Paulk, 1995; Paulk et al., 1993; de Bruin et al., 2005). Notably, since the emergence of CMM, several new maturity models have emerged; thus, it is apparent that the CMM formed a critical blueprint of integration of maturity models with CMM Integration (CMMI) being the latest maturity model version. The current CMMI version is available in 1.3 versions (CMMI Product Team, 2010).

Organizational Project Management Model (OPM3)

The OPM3 refers to an internationally recognized evidence-based standard for evaluating and establishing capabilities in implementation of strategy through projects (Knowledge Foundation, 2003, p. xiv). The fundamental purpose for this standard is to aid organizations in comprehending organizational project management and to assess their maturity against a wide-ranging and broad-based series of best practices in practice. Moreover, this standard also guides organizations in planning for the progressive improvement of their project management maturity. The OPM3 standard is comprised of three fundamental components, including the narrative text, self-assessment, and directories, respectively (Knowledge Foundation, 2003, p. xiv); the first component presents OPM3’s basic concepts, with numerous appendices and a glossary. The second component provides a tool for OPM3’s self-assessment step while the third component provides data on evidence-based organizational project management best practices and their respective capabilities.

Quality Management Maturity Grid (QMMG)

The QMMG is an organizational maturity matrix that businesses utilize as a standard for assessing the level of maturity of their practices and the extent to which they are integrated within their cultures (Gaskell, 2012). Philip Crosby proposed the QMMG and it fundamentally outlines a five by six matrix that indicates the various levels of maturity of organizational quality management against six categories of quality management (Chemweno et al. 2013). The five levels of maturity, from the lowest to the highest, are uncertainty, awakening, enlightenment, as well as wisdom and certainty; the organization is usually inexperienced at the first level. Moreover, quality management ranks lowest in organizational focuses at this first level and it is fundamentally reactive; with the improvement of quality management, organizations move through subsequent levels upwards.

Business Process Maturity Model (BPMM)

The BPMM is an evolutionary improvement model that aids organizations to transform from undeveloped, unreliable business activities to advanced, standardized ones (Curtis & Alden, 2007). This model is designed to guide enhancement of business processes that are often more transactional and seem to be better off conceptualized as workflows across organizational boundaries (OMG, 2005). The BPMM integrates enhancements in coverage as well as structure and interpretation, which have been advanced since the foundation of prior models. The BPMM has five maturity levels, which represent various states through which organizations become transformed following enhancements in their processes and capabilities respectively. These levels, from the lowest to the highest, include the initial, the managed, the standardized, as well as the predictable and the innovating level (OMG, 2005).

Change Management Maturity Model

The change management maturity model draws from benchmarking research and experiences of organizations undergoing change to describe the varying stages of change management capability across organizations (Prosci, 2004). The model highlights five levels of change management capability, all of which entail more attention and management of the people’s side of change. At the first stage, little or no change management is applied; the second stage entails some degree of change management on isolated projects while the third stage entails the application of a comprehensive change management approach to multiple projects (Prosci, 2004). The third and fourth stages entail the deployment of organization-wide standards and methods of change management and the strengthening of change management competence respectively.

People Capability Maturity Model (People CMM)

The People CMM is a framework for the implementation of workforce practices that progressively enhance the capability of a company’s workforce; the People CMM is fundamentally a process-based model (Curtis, Hefley and Miller, 2003). This model is fundamentally premised on the assumption that work-force practices are organizational processes that can be progressively enhanced in the same way other business process are improved, through staged process changes. The People CMM was designed specifically to achieve four objectives, to develop individual capability, strengthen teams and culture, to inspire and manage performance, and to shape the personnel (Curtis, Hefley and Miller, 2009). The implementation of this model helps organizations to characterize the maturity of their people practices and to s address all the critical people issues in organization successfully.

E-learning Maturity Model (eMM)

The eMM describes a quality improvement framework that is specifically meant to support educational institutions that seek to improve their organizational capability to adopt technology in learning and instruction, within a dynamic and fast-changing context (Marshall, 2013). The eMM’s measurement framework is useful for benchmarking purposes, for the sake of promoting meaningful joint collaborations between institutions, either through data sharing or through research. The eMM framework is a crucial tool for considering matters of quality with the intention of implementing meaningful improvements. Specifically, higher education institutions that seek to enhance their e-learning processes can find the eMM framework quite meaningful to their goals (Marshall & Mitchell, 2002).

E-commerce Maturity Model

The e-commerce maturity model, proposed by KPMG, describes the maturity level of the use of information communication systems within organizations; this model is crucial in characterizing the organization’s present e-business maturity status and desirable future position (Al Ghamdi, Abdulaziz, & Bahaddad, 2014). Like all other e-commerce maturity models, the KPMG’s model assumes that organizations go through notional phases of maturity in relation to the way in which they deploy or manage their ICT systems to support and promote business operations, processes and activities (Prananto, Mckay, & Marshall, 2001). The e-commerce maturity model outlines three maturity stages namely, experimentation, as well as Ad-hoc implementation, and integration. Thus, organization’s e-commerce maturity improves at each subsequent stage after the experimentation stage, through to the integration stage, where organizations have fully integrated their systems.

ICT maturity within organisations

Information and communication technology (ICT) is developing at a faster rate with the improvement and innovation of technology (Birdsall, 2011). Presently the organizations are using various IT technologies for communicating effectively with the customers and the employees. In the current scenario, ICT is one of the most important things for developing a company. As per the requirements of the business, the company for improving the maturity of ICT implements different functions and actions (Wainwright, et al. 2005). The standard of ICT is set by the company, which helps it to assess the functions of ICT. By this process, the companies get to know the maturity of ICT and its effectiveness on organizational processes (Ning and Levina, 2011). Effective ICT process helps everyone within the organisation to contribute effectively in the business process. With the help of advanced technologies, smooth communication processes are developed within the companies. Most of the big companies have offices in different parts of the world. IT system facilitates the companies in connecting their various offices properly. Strong communication system is established within the company by implementing different software. The software helps the organisations to know and to improve the present operations of the organisation. The firm for improving the maturity of ICT establishes the best practices of IT (Zhang, Van Donk, & Taco, 2011). The proper maintenance and administration of ICT add values to the business process for the company. For managing ICT, organisations develop many management strategies. These strategies help the companies in improving each stage of ICT, which is involved, with the management of the company (Kenny, 2006).

ICT is very much important for the e-commerce firms to hold its position in the competitive business environment. In the present scenario, companies have understood the importance of ICT and for this reason, they are focusing more on establishing effective ICT system (Ryu, Park & Park, 2006). Knowledge of business process and services are managed in a proper way by ICT. The maturity model in the particular context of ICT within the organisation can help in ranking the different organisations of the levels of ICT that are used (Solar, Sabattin, & Parada, 2013). The maturity model in the particular context of information and communication technology with the organisation can not only help in ranking different organisation on the level of information and communication technology that is used by them but can also be used to show light to the organisation as to the direction which they should pursue for further development in the field of information and communication technology (Wainwright, et al. 2005).

Thus in the context of the development of information and communication technology within the organisation, the maturity model can function as a very important resource. The use of information and communication technology in the development of the present day organisation is well known (Chen, Preston & Xia, 2010). It is quite clear that the organisations of today and future will develop; if they are able to use the potential of information and communication technology to the fullest. However, the problem that often arises is to find the direction in which the development can be pursued and it is in this particular respect that the maturity models can come to aid (Solar, Sabattin, & Parada, 2013).

The analysis of the Poeppelbuss’s maturity literature (2011) suggests that the CMM and CMMI to the most dominant IS maturity models. The research further shows that the CMM was commonly used in twenty-nine papers while CMMI was immensely used in the seven articles. Additionally, eighth paper introduces the Nolan‟s (1973, 1979) stage theory. Notably, the maturity models have other papers including thirteen papers that include the Layne and Lee’s (2001) e-government stage model.

Capability Maturity Model (CMM, focusing on software development)

The CMM refers to a framework used to develop and refine organizations’ software development processes; it entails a five-step evolutionary pathway of well-organized and systematically mature processes (Jayaram, 2007). This methodology was initially motivated by the desire to address software engineering problems and to advance engineering methods; specifically, this model guides software firms in gaining control of their processes for establishing and maintaining software. Moreover, this model enables software companies to transform progressively and to advance towards the culture of software engineering and management excellence. Software organizations apply the CMM framework in highlighting current process maturity and the pertinent issues compelling software quality and process enhancements, and to select the most appropriate process improvement strategies (Rouse, 2007).

Open Source Maturity Model (for open-source software development)

The OMM describes a methodological framework used in the assessment of the open software development processes, and it was particularly designed to aid organizations in applying the so-called Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) software in both prototype and mainstream production (Petrinja & Succi, 2012). The overriding purpose of the OMM is to enable organizations that use FLOSS to develop their products more efficiently and to inspire consumer trust in their products; moreover, this tool is also essential for evaluating organizational software processes. In other words, the OMM framework was fundamentally established to enhance the perceived efficiency of the FLOSS development process; in that case, the FLOSS community is the significant beneficiary of the OMM (Petrinja & Succi, 2012). The OMM is organized into three fundamental maturity levels, including the basic, the intermediate, and the advanced level; the level of sophistication increases as organizations move progressively, from the basic to the advanced levels.

Service Integration Maturity Model (for SOA)

The SIMM describes a standardized framework for companies to lead transformation to a service-oriented business model; a standardized maturity model enables organizations to effectively benchmark for their SIMM levels and to establish roadmaps for change (The Open Group, 2009). In other words, the SIMM is fundamentally utilized as a transformational framework for establishing not only the scope, but also the focus and the procedural stages for service-oriented architecture (SOA). The steps involved in applying the SIMM framework are identifying the client’s current state in service integration and flexibility, as well as their desired or preferred future state; based on this assessment, SIMM guides the client through a structural model for SOA adoption (The Open Group, 2009). The SIMM focuses on increasing the degrees of flexibility in multiple domains of the organization, including business, information, as well as organization and governance. The SIMM also enhances efficiencies in organizations’ methods and processes, infrastructure, as well as application portfolio, and operational management.

Modeling Maturity Levels (for software specification)

Modeling maturity levels refers to a classification system that characterizes the function of modeling in a software project; the concept is akin to the manner in which software processes are rated using the capability maturity model (Kleppe, Warmer, & Bast, 2003). There are six modeling maturity levels; at level zero, there is virtually no written specification of software since it only exists in the minds of the developers. At the first level, there is textual specification, whereby the software is articulated through a particular natural language text and written down in one or more documents. The second level entails the improvement of textual specification with numerous models to indicate some of the principle structures of the system; the third level entails writing down the specification of the software in one or more models (Kleppe, Warmer, & Bast, 2003). Moreover, details, background, as well as motivation of the models are explicated in natural language, just like at the fourth level; however, at the fourth level, the natural language takes on a similar role as comments in the source code. At the fifth level, the codes are specific and detailed enough to warrant complete code generation; the distinguishing feature of code generators at this level is their trustworthiness.

Enterprise IT Performance Maturity Model

The enterprise IT Performance Maturity Model guides IT organizations in enhancing processes for running application performance and mainframe costs; this framework is particularly effective for highlighting the skills/culture gap and closing it (Compuware, 2014). This model outlines five levels of maturity, including the ad hoc, the technology, internal services, as well as the external services, and the business revenue oriented level. At each of these levels, this model also outlines numerous maturity categories including application technology, mainframe attributes, organization, as well as performance technology and process. A vast majority of IT organizations straddle between different maturity levels for numerous categories (Compuware, 2014). For instance, many organizations may attain the fourth and fifth levels of application technology while their culture and processes still lag at the first and second levels.

Software Product Management Maturity Model

Software product management is a critical area for software development companies or enterprises, especially bearing in mind that effective product management results to successful results (van de Weerd, Bekkers, and Brinkkemper, 2009). In that respect, the software product management maturity model is an effective tool for assessing the company’s software process management maturity level and identifying gaps for improvement to attain higher maturity levels (Bekkers et al. 2010). All kinds of software development companies rely on this maturity model as a fundamental guide for progressively enhancing their software product management maturity levels.

The SharePoint Maturity Model

This model was developed to bring a holistic view to share point implementation as well as standardization to the dialogue centering on functionality, best practices and enhancement (Van Buren, 2011). This model begins at one hundred as opposed to at zero and it is fundamentally a framework as opposed to a formula; implementation of this model enables companies to establish a roadmap towards greater business process efficiency and a more trustworthy sharePoint environment. Similarly, this model yields more satisfied and empowered users and leads to more efficiencies in terms of time saving; eventually, this framework enables companies to establish a data model that aids in the assessment of organization’s share point maturity (Van Buren, 2011).

Application Performance Management Maturity Model

The application performance management maturity model describes a framework through which organizations can effectively assess and progressively enhance the maturity level of their performance management processes (Doddavula, Tiwari & Gawande, 2011). This model fundamentally outlines a six-step evolutionary process through which organizations can effectively transform and mature their performance management processes in not only an organized, but also a systematic manner. The six steps, from the lowest to the highest are the ad hoc, the systematic performance resolution, performance testing, as well as early performance validation and performance engineering (Doddavula, Tiwari & Gawande, 2011).

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Maturity Model

The DITA Maturity Model is a framework derives its name from three crucial components, Darwin (adopts specialization and inheritance principles analogues to Darwin’s evolutionary adaptation), information typing (each topic has a specific principle objective) and architecture (has numerous structures) (Day, Priestley, and Hargiss, 2005). The DITA is simple to use and integrates best practices, thereby not only reducing the technicalities involved in creating intelligent content, but also making their application intuitive; moreover, the DITA enables organizations to enhance their quality, and delivery speed while reducing costs (Contelligence Group, 2013).

DevOps maturity model

DevOps fundamentally describes a series of best practices and cultural shifts that enable development, as well as quality assurance and operations to meet the needs of customers effectively (HP Enterprise, 2015). This integrated framework enables not only communication, but also collaboration and integration to manage the fast-shifting demands of businesses in today’s global business environment. DevOps transforms the manner in which application delivery and operations teams interact and execute processes; most importantly, this framework calls for a reorientation of technology, processes and culture respectively (HP Enterprise, 2015).

ITIL Maturity Model

The ITIL maturity model is the widely adopted framework for IT service management, particularly because of its clearly defined processes and practices (Axelos 2013). This model outlines five levels of maturity including the initial, the repeatable, the defined, as well as the managed and the optimized levels. The first step entails ad hoc, disorganized and chaotic processes, but they begin to take on a regular pattern in the second step. In the third step, processes are not only fully recognized, and standardized, but also documented and communicated through training; by the fourth step, functions are fully integrated throughout IT and at the fifth step, they are practically automated (Axelos, 2013).