Cherry picking with meta-models: a systematic approach for the organization-specific configuration of maturity models

  • Authors:

  • Janusch Patas;Jens Pöppelbuß;Matthias Goeken

  • Affiliations:

  • Frankurt School of Finance and Management, Frankfurt, Germany;University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany;Frankurt School of Finance and Management, Frankfurt, Germany

  • Venue:
  • DESRIST'13 Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Design Science at the Intersection of Physical and Virtual Design
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

Information systems (IS) managers apply maturity models (MMs) to evaluate and enhance their organization's capabilities. Since the MM concept has become increasingly popular in research and practice over the past years, the number of similar or competing MMs has literally exploded. Despite their popularity, MMs are often criticized for being either too generic or too comprehensive. Therefore, prior to their application, organizations tend to adjust them according to their specific requirements. Unfortunately, IS management lacks methods to support this task systematically. In this article we intend to close this methodical gap as we develop a meta-model that supports a systematic configuration of MMs according to organization-specific requirements. We conduct a thorough literature analysis to construct this artifact, i.e., a maturity model meta-model (MMMM). Thereafter, we apply a tool-supported qualitative content analysis to extend, ground, and evaluate those components using a representative subset of 13 publicly available MMs. Finally, we identify four use cases and adapt configuration mechanisms from related research areas to illustrate and demonstrate our artifact's utility. Both IS practice and research benefit from our findings as we contribute a systematic meta-model-based approach that helps to analyze MMs and configure them to organization-specific requirements.