Maturity Models are simply tables that describe the journey between poor practice and best practice across a number of different aspects and levels.
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As such, they provide a ‘less-prescriptive’ way of engaging individuals and groups in developing practical goals for adopting best practice.
They work by means of describing a series of stages of development, across a range of criteria, between what might be described as ‘worst practice’ and ‘best practice’. The idea is that any team seeking to improve can use the tool to discuss and agree for where they are currently on these stages (the group may be at different stages for different criteria), and then define where they would like to be on each criteria, and a practical timescale to achieve it.
Good discussion should be evidence based in respect of current position, and include an exploration of benefits and motivation in respect of the goal.
The picture below shows a simplified maturity model for Meeting Effectiveness. One key rule for discussing current position is that a preceding stage of development has to be complete before a higher stage can be considered.
Utilising a simplified maturity model for your team/attendees first exposure to maturity models has a number of advantages: The discussions can be relatively quick; it is easier to get across the concept; and it provides a simple set of outcomes.
However, as the team matures, they will quickly realise that there are important aspects of meeting effectiveness that are completely missing from the chart. At this point, they will be ready to engage with a more comprehensive model (shown on the right) which can be downloaded as a pdf by clicking this link.
The clinic contains extensive guidance on making progress along the dimensions of the maturity model. A start point for each of the six blocks can be found by clicking the links below: