There are 5 criteria to consider when evaluating the maturity of your process.
Over the years, I've identified five key factors to consider when evaluating the maturity level of a process. These also become the guidelines on the next steps to further mature your process. I've grouped these into Governance and Process categories.
Governance perspective
Ownership: This trait looks at the accountability of the process owner (once identified, as well as the oversight by Sr. Leadership. Think through the following questions about the level of ownership maturity: Is there someone assigned responsibility for the process? Is this process owner fully engaged in monitoring and improving the process? Does Sr. Leadership provide on-going oversight to revise strategy, challenge the status quo, and hold the process owner accountable to process capability?
Expectations: Determines how well the process capabilities are understood and communicated. Consider the following questions about Expectation maturity: Are process capabilities (in terms of scope, cost, time, quality) still not known even within the business? Internally, has the business agreed upon the capabilities of the process? Externally, is the business setting customer expectations and is the business proactively scheduling the work? Does the business work to meet evolving customer expectations and competitor challenges?
Measures: This category reviews the level that metrics are utilized to understand and monitor the health of the process. Here are questions regarding the maturity of your metrics: Is data manually scrapped together when requested? Is there a system of record used to capture and monitor key process data (e.g. Counts, WIP, Cycle Time). Are there established process analytics to understand capability (e.g. Entry & Exit rates, Defect traits, Cost per Unit). Can we perform advanced process modeling and capacity analysis?
Metrics are used to understand the health of your process. #ProcessHealth
Process perspective
Methods: Outlines how well the process is defined and technology is used to deliver value. Consider the following the questions: Is there a clear definition of process steps, functional area responsibility and hand-off requirements? Do we have an operational level process map and use similar tools to perform the work? Is there consistent inputs and best practices driving efficiency and output consistency? Are we upgrading our technology to eliminate low-value work that allows employees to deliver higher customer value?
People: This trait considers the level of investment in the people being asked to perform the process. Do we have non-dedicated people with limited training performing the process? Do we have dedicated trained resources using the proper tools being held accountable to a standard? Are roles specialized to specific process steps with deeper training to develop higher expertise? Are we training people on new technology to provide higher level capabilities and customer value?
So, now that you have read the 5 traits above and previously read the 4 levels of maturity, you can now envision a 5 row, 4 column, 20 grid Process Maturity Matrix. Yep, we've got that! Now you can evaluate your own process maturity.
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