IT maturity is a concept we love to talk about here at DYOPATH, but we’re aware that it isn’t always common parlance for the average person. That said, we think it’s an essential part of building a productive, secure, efficient company, so it’s worth unpacking what it means and why it matters.
Getting closer to IT maturity will pay dividends for your company in all kinds of ways, but most organizations are a long way from this. It’s important to understand the fundamentals of IT maturity and how you can get closer to it.
Keep reading to learn what IT maturity is at each stage of maturity and how to take the right steps to make your organization more mature.
What Does IT Maturity Mean?
IT maturity refers to how developed and advanced your IT infrastructure is, as well as how effectively your IT operations support your overarching business goals and initiatives.
An organization with a high level of IT maturity will have sophisticated tools and processes and skilled people, all seamlessly aligned with your business strategy. Most businesses, however, do not have a high level of IT maturity. Let’s take a look at some of the different stages of maturity and what they look like.
What Stage of Maturity Is Your Business?
The first step towards improving your IT maturity is figuring out where you are right now. To help you do this, we created an IT maturity model with five stages to help you pinpoint your current level of maturity.
- Chaos. Your IT operations look very messy with no real structure, no clear plans, and little to no awareness of how IT ties into overarching business objectives. Most of your IT activities will revolve around putting out fires and fixing the many issues that arise as a result of inefficient and jumbled infrastructure. Your IT department is unreliable and doesn’t help the wider company.
- Reactive. This stage is characterized by slightly more organization and capability but is still a long way from maturity. Here, your IT teams are capable of responding to issues and support ticket requests, but they do so reactively. Instead of proactively taking steps to prevent problems and fix inefficiencies, your teams are buried under a constant flood of problems to respond to.
- Proactive. At this stage, your IT teams have the training, skills, and tools to start proactively improving your organization. They’re no longer tied up with preventable challenges and thus able to predict issues and prevent common issues from reoccurring. They can start to think about IT in the context of your organization’s wider goals and take steps to align the two.
- Service. Your IT team can start to widen its scope beyond specific IT work, supporting the other departments in your organization. This is the beginning of a truly mature organization, where IT works in close alignment and collaboration with all other teams to achieve your higher business objectives.
Value. In its final stage of IT maturity, your IT team moves beyond high-level support and service functions to take on a leading role within the organization. The team is able to add real value to the company by providing insights, sharing specialist knowledge, and identifying opportunities for growth, development, and improvement.
The fifth and final stage of IT maturity is true maturity — where your IT department is able to consistently increase the value of the company as a whole. Knowing which stage your organization is at enables you to identify your areas for improvement and work toward the next stage of maturity.
How to Improve IT Maturity
Now that we’ve explored the different stages of IT maturity, and hopefully helped you gain a better idea of where your company stands, it’s time to look at the steps you can take to start building a more mature organization.
Focus on People, Processes & Tools
People, processes, and tools are the three main areas we focus on when it comes to IT maturity. All these factors need to work together at a high level if you want to climb to the highest levels of maturity. Every tool you invest in, every person you hire, and every strategy you outline should focus on how the business as a whole will benefit.
Start with a thorough assessment of your organization to identify what tools and processes you’re already using, your team’s level of training and experience, and what needs to change to start ascending that ladder of maturity.
Prioritize Overall Cultural Change
Fundamentally, IT maturity involves the entire organization. Simply investing in a few new tools and training courses won’t be enough to take you to the upper levels of IT maturity — for this, you’ll need a sustained focus on building the right company culture.
Your teams need to understand and buy into your wider goals, and fully acknowledge how and why their individual roles support your initiatives.
Don’t Forget Security
Cybersecurity must be a central part of your IT maturity journey. With businesses today facing more threats than ever before and with greater consequences, no business can be fully mature without a strong focus on security.
This is another area where culture is essential — all your employees need to be trained in cyber awareness so they understand best practices, common risks, and the reasons to follow safe habits. It may also make sense to work with a managed security services provider to gain access to the best tools and highly skilled experts.
Work With the Right Partner
IT maturity is all about bringing your IT operations in line with your wider business goals, so your IT teams can eventually start consistently growing the value of your organization. This means you need to start considering the wider business impact of everything you do in IT. Working with a skilled and experienced partner like DYOPATH can make the process much easier and more successful.
We’ve helped countless companies adopt and follow our unique IT maturity framework, so we know all the common pitfalls and challenges you’ll face. We’ll bring cutting-edge tools, high-level skills, and a deep understanding of IT maturity.
So, what’s next? A good place to start is by taking our free IT maturity assessment, where you’ll get your own unique score that shows where you are right now and what you need to do next. Take our free IT maturity assessment here.
