5.4 Review your maturity and opportunities for improvement

Having completed the self-assessment, using the downloaded spread sheet, a radar diagram will be produced which illustrates the institution's overall maturity profile and category.

An example of the diagram generated within the spread sheet is:

Your institution's maturity profile, allows you to compare your assessment against three example profiles of transformational, strategic and operational maturity, illustrated by, Figure 15 Examples of Maturity.

The profiles provide a visual perspective using a scale of 10 to indicate maturity in each 'enabling' area as well as the net sum providing overall maturity. The profile is a self-analysis and is clearly dependent on the accuracy of the information provided. However, it provides the starting point by defining, where the institution is now, and a framework for your investigation and improvement activities.

Next consider, where does the institution want to be? Your own project brief and initiation documentation will support this and allow you to identify and confirm with more details:

• the scope of the review, either institutional or specific to a defined area
• the objectives, that must in themselves be aligned with the institutional strategy as institutions will have different priorities
• your key drivers for maturity*
• the issues that are to be addressed*

* these may influence the priority that your project wishes to place against specific 'enablers' such as Enterprise Architecture or Communications and Engagement.

The institution's current maturity profile and the following 'reviewing' information can now be used to develop your specific opportunities for improvement. The scale of this review will be dependent on your terms of reference for the project but the framework provides a checklist. This activity is often enhanced by the use of facilitated workshops for groups considering the analyses and improvements.

Use the enablers as a framework to develop:

1. a definition of current organisation and practice
   1. associate the issues and benefits with the current mode of operation
2. proposals for improvements referenced against the current practice where appropriate
   1. define the improvement objectives and success criteria
   2. define the proposed structures, resources and practices
   3. associate the issues and benefits that can be realised by implementing the improvements
   4. assess the impact of change

To support this we provide by enabler, the knowledge base, your self-assessment and the review summaries with indicators of good practice, which we have evidenced as being successful.

These opportunities may identify alternative approaches that the institution may consider to achieve their desired maturity before agreeing and recommending the way forward.