The IT Skeptic - Comments for "Practice maturity is a measure of management not performance"

Faith vs. works

Charles T. Betz — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:06:26 +0000

Faith vs. works, performance vs. maturity... I'm beginning to think it's a theological discussion. Do good works suffice? Or are they simply a sign of grace? Does performance follow maturity? Or is maturity simply a sign of high performance?

Shall we fight for thirty years over it?

Charles T. Betz
http://www.erp4it.com

repeatable process is anti-evolutionary

skeptic — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:46:39 +0000

Made me smile. Real ITSM argues the same thing: repeatable process is anti-evolutionary. It is like a monoculture crop: most efficient right now, least resilient to sudden change

Overstated Benefits

Robert Fabian — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:38:48 +0000

You're correct, but "maturity" is of even more limited value.

First, maturity assumes that there is a one right way to improve the process. Two level 5's would both be following similarly refined, articulated, and defined processes. All of the measures that I have seen define levels in a context independent fashion. This is a weak conceptual foundation.

But, it is a handy metric. Management can examine its current maturity level and ask how much, if any, improvement should be set as a goal. That's practically handy.

Even granting its practical utility, the word "maturity" has the wrong denotation, and connotation. More "maturity" is almost always seen as being better. Moving up an IT maturity scale, however, is not always a good thing. As we get more (IT) mature, we lock in ever more strongly to refined, articulated, and defined processes. In our chaotic world, these sophisticated (and often rigid) processes can become shackles that bind us to processes that worked in the past, but may not work in the future. As you pointed out, more maturity may not be cost-effective. More maturity may also be a bad strategic direction in which to move.

see what they are really assessing

skeptic — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:35:44 +0000

yes, and if it is a CMM-style maturity we are talking about then you have to look at the actual assessment criteria to see what they are really assessing. If they have used the repeatable-defined-managed-optimised model then all it shows is that you measure and (try to) refine the process. It doesn't say anything about governance, or even quality of the deliverables (that depends on WHAT you measure).

And of course process maturity only measures one leg of the three-legged-stool: People Practices and Things. It says nothing about how good the people are (culture, knowldge, skills) or how good the tools are (efficiency, effectiveness).

most of all process maturity is an inward facing metric - it is unaffected by what the customer thinks or receives

Potential and Execution

Prashant Bhardwaj — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:00:21 +0000

I really like the way you have put this into perspective.

The way I understand is that process maturity is only an indicator of the potential of a process within the IT and does not translate into how well the execution is being done. A process might be rated high in process documentation, or integration or governance, however the process execution compliance may be far from doing what is to be done the way its documented!