A maturity assessment is useful when it ends in a short list of things to do and useless when it ends in a score. The difference is set at the start, by whether you collect evidence or ratings.
This guide covers the four facts worth gathering, why asking what the last holiday cost is the cheapest test available, and how to finish with three things to start and one to stop.
Key takeaways
- Evidence, not self-rating: Four facts you could show somebody beat forty scores out of five, because facts cannot be rounded up.
- Ask what the last holiday cost: The single-person dependency is the cheapest thing to assess and the clearest thing to act on.
- Finish with a list, not a level: An assessment that ends in a maturity score gets filed and repeated two years later.
- Delivery capability caps everything: How long the last supplier change took sets the ceiling on every other improvement in the plan.
Start with the business outcome
What this has to produce is a short list of things to do, with owners and dates. Write that down as the deliverable at the start, because an assessment commissioned without one produces a maturity level and the same exercise is repeated two years later.
Gather evidence rather than ratings. The journey customers complain about, the process that depends on one person, the report rebuilt by hand each month, the last change that took a supplier longer than expected: four facts beat forty scores.
Four areas to define before choosing features
1. Journeys
Pick the customer journey that works worst today and find the step where people most often give up or call. A maturity assessment that starts from a framework produces a score, and one that starts from a failing journey produces a project.
2. Operations
Find the process that depends on one person's knowledge and ask what happened during their last holiday. This is the cheapest assessment available and it usually produces the clearest action, because nobody needs convincing that the risk is real.
3. Data
Identify the report that gets rebuilt by hand each month and count the hours. Manual reporting is the most reliable indicator of where systems do not talk to each other, and the figure is already sitting in somebody's calendar.
4. Capability
Work out what you can change yourselves, what needs a supplier, and how long the supplier currently takes. Delivery capability sets the ceiling on everything else in the assessment, and improving it changes more than any single system would.
Decide what to measure
Measure adoption together with cycle time, rework, exception volume, customer outcome, and management response. A rising login count does not prove transformation if the old channels and reconciliation work remain necessary.
Manage the most likely risks
| Decision area | Risk to make visible | Practical safeguard |
|---|---|---|
| Journeys | Self-rating replaces evidence | Collect four facts you could show somebody rather than scores out of five. |
| Operations | Managers answer for their teams | Ask the people doing the work; the two groups report different facts about the same process. |
| Data | The single-person dependency is accepted | Find out what the last holiday cost and write it down as a number. |
| Capability | Delivery capability is left out | Record how long the last supplier change actually took, because it caps everything else. |
Build a roadmap around evidence
1. Collect the four facts
Get the failing journey, the single-person process, the manual report and the slow change, with numbers.
2. Ask what happens during a holiday
Test the dependency by finding out who covered and what waited.
3. Pick three to start and one to stop
Give each an owner and a date, and make the stop item somebody senior enough to defend it.
4. Set the baseline
Record one number per area so next year's assessment has something to compare with.
For what the target state usually looks like once the gaps are known, see How to Build a Digital Operating Model for Your Business.
Plan adoption and operating ownership
Assessments create expectations, and the quickest way to waste one is to publish findings with no funded response. Agree before you start who will act on the short list and where the capacity comes from. If the honest answer is that nothing can be funded this year, run a smaller assessment of the one area where something can.
Make the data and system boundaries explicit
List the records a digital maturity assessment needs to read, create, update, and preserve. For each record, identify its source of truth, owner, freshness requirement, correction path, retention need, and allowed roles. Connect the list to journeys, operations, data, and capability so data work remains tied to product behavior.
The result should help the business evaluate journeys, workflows, data, technology, governance, and delivery capability without producing a passive score while retaining control of the information the product depends on. It also gives potential partners a fairer basis for estimating integration, migration, backend, and operating work.
A 30-day validation plan: Digital maturity assessment
Days 1 to 5: gather evidence instead of ratings. Rather than asking people to score the business out of five, collect four facts: the journey customers complain about, the process that depends on one person, the report rebuilt by hand each month, and the last change that took a supplier longer than expected. Facts cannot be rounded up to look better. Collect them from the people doing the work rather than from their managers, because the two groups report different facts about the same process.
Days 6 to 15: ask what happens when that person is away. Test the single-person dependency by finding out what the last holiday cost. Who covered, what waited, what was done differently. This is the cheapest assessment in the exercise and it usually produces the clearest action, because nobody has to be convinced the risk is real. Ask the person themselves what they would hand over first, since they usually know exactly which part of the knowledge is undocumented.
Days 16 to 30: finish with four items, not a level. Write three things to start and one to stop, each with an owner and a date. An assessment that ends in a maturity level gets filed and repeated two years later, while a short list with names on it survives contact with the next planning cycle. Give the stop item to someone senior enough to defend it, as stopping an established activity attracts more resistance than starting a new one.
A practical worksheet: Digital maturity assessment
A maturity assessment is useful when it produces a short list of things to do and useless when it produces a score. Complete these rows with evidence you could show someone, not with a self-rating.
| Decision area | What to record |
|---|---|
| Journeys | The customer journey that works worst today, and the step where people most often give up or call |
| Operations | The process that depends on one person's knowledge, and what happens during their holiday |
| Data | The report that gets rebuilt by hand each month, and how many hours that takes |
| Capability | What you can change yourselves, what needs a supplier, and how long the supplier currently takes |
| Measurement | One number per row that you can produce today, so next year's assessment has something to compare with |
Finish with three things to start and one to stop, each with an owner and a date. An assessment that ends in a level rather than a short list gets filed, and the same exercise is commissioned again two years later.
Related guides
- A second perspective worth having is Digital Transformation Roadmap: A 7-Step Business Guide.
- The operational half of this is in Paperless Workflow: How to Digitize Paper-Based Processes.
Should Digital Maturity Assessment: Questions and an Action Plan turn into a plan with owners and dates attached, Discuss Your Digital Roadmap.
Ali Boran Gazel