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Digital Transformation Maturity Assessment

For transformation and operations leaders who want to see how far the change has reached the work itself, and what comes next.

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Line illustration of maturity as a climb through six levels, breaking at the third, drawn as amber steps, one of them broken.

In brief

This assessment shows how far your digital transformation has reached the way work is done, and what to do next. Your answers across direction, processes, systems and adoption give a maturity band. For your two weakest areas it lists steps a named role can take next week, and it makes a PDF you can share.

Step 1 of 4: Direction

0 of 16 answered

  1. Direction (current step)
  2. Processes (not yet reached)
  3. Systems (not yet reached)
  4. Adoption (not yet reached)

Direction

Direction is what the transformation says will be different in the work, who settles a clash between projects and how progress is reported. Without it the transformation is a list of purchases that nobody can call finished.

1. What does the transformation say will be different in the way work is done once it has landed?
2. When two transformation projects compete for the same people, budget or release window, how is it settled?
3. How is the transformation's progress reported to the executive team?
4. What happens to a delivered transformation project whose result is not being used?

Processes

Processes are the routes work really takes, workarounds included. Changing one means drawing it as it runs, agreeing the new version with the people who run it and closing the old route on a stated day.

5. Are the processes being changed written down as they actually run today, workarounds included?
6. When a process is redesigned, who signs off the new version?
7. When a process changes, what happens to the old route?
8. How are the exceptions to a redesigned process handled?

Systems

Systems are the tools and records the redesigned work runs on, and how they connect and get changed. Every old tool left running beside its replacement is one more place where the same fact can differ.

9. When a new tool is introduced, what happens to the tool or spreadsheet it was meant to replace?
10. When two systems disagree about the same fact, such as a customer's status or an order's value, how is it settled?
11. How much of the knowledge of how your systems connect sits with one or two people?
12. How do business teams get a change made to a system they depend on?

Adoption

Adoption is whether the people who do the work now do it the new way, and what happens when they do not. A change is finished when it can be seen in the work, whatever the launch report says.

13. When do the people who will use a changed process or system first take part in shaping it?
14. How do people learn the new way of working?
15. How is adoption measured after launch?
16. When people work around the new way of doing things, what happens?

Answer the 4 questions left on this step to go on.

On this page

Has the change you paid for reached the work itself?

Transformation efforts are usually reported as projects, with budgets, milestones and go-live dates. A project can meet every one of them while a team keeps the old spreadsheet open beside the new platform. This assessment asks about the work: what the change was meant to alter, how processes were drawn and closed, what became of the tools they replaced, and whether people use what they were given.

It will not tell you whether you chose the right platform, whether the business case was sound, or how you compare with anyone else. It reads nothing from your systems.

Who should sit with it, and whether to answer alone

Give it one uninterrupted sitting, shorter than a meeting that needs slides. Each question describes a situation, so choose the answer that sounds like last week and look nothing up. Where two seem equally true, take the lower.

The transformation lead is the natural person to start, and also the one most likely to see the change as further along than the people doing the work do. Ask an operations manager and a daily user of the new system to answer separately, then lay the results side by side. Where they differ is worth more than any total.

A self-assessment, or a closer look from outside?

A short assessment reaches a view quickly and sees nothing you left out.

It fits when

  • You have spent on tools and cannot say what is done differently in one function
  • Sponsors and operations leaders describe progress in different terms
  • A further phase is about to be funded and you want to know where it will meet resistance

Look elsewhere when

  • The question is which platform to buy, which needs a requirements and supplier review
  • You need assurance for a board, a regulator or a lender, which needs independent review
  • The transformation has not started, and a roadmap would serve better

The trade is speed for depth. Where the result will feed a funding decision, treat it as a hypothesis and test it with the people who run the work.

How to read your band and your two weakest areas

The band is a plain reading of your total against fixed limits. Its wording describes the usual state of a transformation at that level and the failure that tends to come next, so take it as a prompt for judgment and not as a verdict. The same total can come from even answers or from one strong area beside a very weak one, and the two call for different responses. That is why the tool also picks the two areas where you earned the smallest share of the points available.

Under each you see its steps and the answers that cost you points, quoted in your own words. Your strongest area is named with a way to test it, since a high score in an area nobody has checked is the one most likely to be wrong.

What to do the day after you have the result

  1. 01

    Show it to the people who disagree

    Send the PDF to the function heads and ask each to mark your weakest areas right, wrong or incomplete.

  2. 02

    Choose one step and put a name on it

    Take the first step under your weakest area, write the role beside it and give it a date.

  3. 03

    Close one old route

    Pick a process whose old route still runs beside the new one and set the day it ends. Tell everyone affected, and have someone check afterward that it closed.

  4. 04

    Answer again after the next change

    Return once the next real change has settled into daily use and compare the two sets by area. The movement tells you more than the band.

What do people ask before using the digital transformation maturity assessment?

Our project reports say we delivered. Why would an assessment disagree?

Reports track projects: budgets, milestones and go-live dates. A project can meet all of them while a team keeps the old spreadsheet open beside the new platform. This assessment asks about the work itself: whether old routes were closed, and whether people use what they were given.

Who should answer, the transformation lead or the people doing the work?

Both. The transformation lead is the natural person to start, and also the one likelier to see the change as further along than the people doing the work do. Ask an operations manager and a daily user to answer separately, then compare. Where they differ matters most.

Can the result tell us if we chose the right platform or how we compare with others?

No. It will not say whether the platform was right, whether the business case was sound or how you compare with anyone else. The points are our own judgment from transformation work, not a published maturity model, so do not read the bands across to another model's stages.

What should we do with the weakest areas once we have the result?

Take the first step under your weakest area, write a role and a date beside it, and pick one old route to close on a stated day. Send the PDF to the function heads and ask them to mark your weakest areas right, wrong or incomplete. Answer again later.

Related

When systems and data stop agreeingHow systems drift apart, what it costs, and the checks that hold them together.ReportDigital TransformationOperating change across process, decision rights and platform, with the old route switched off.ServiceDigital Transformation Roadmap TemplateA fillable PDF roadmap that starts from the change in the work and says what stops.DownloadAutomation Opportunity RegisterA register that values and ranks the processes worth automating.Download

Where has your transformation not yet reached the work?

Describe what you are weighing in a few lines. A senior practitioner replies with a suggested first conversation.

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