Oakes Consulting
The framework
Most organizations are stuck in two or three places, not everywhere.
This is the lens I use to work out which. Six dimensions, and every organization sits somewhere different on each one. The point is not to score well. It is to find the two or three that are quietly holding everything else back.
Operational maturity is not a grade. It is a description of how much of your work depends on particular people remembering things. At one end, everything lives in someone's head and none of it survives their vacation. At the other, the work runs because it is written down, owned by name, and looked at on a schedule. Almost nobody sits at either end, and almost nobody is in the same place across all six.
01
Process & documentation
Where it usually starts Nothing is written down. The way things work lives in the heads of the people who have been here longest, and it leaves when they do.
Where it needs to get to The core processes are written down and most people follow them most of the time. That is a lower bar than it sounds, and very few organizations clear it.
02
Roles & accountability
Where it usually starts Whoever is available does the task. Ask who owns something and you get a pause rather than a name.
Where it needs to get to Every core function has a name attached to it, and the person whose name it is knows that it is theirs.
03
Communication & information flow
Where it usually starts Information lives in inboxes and side conversations. Two people do the same job without knowing, and a third never hears about it at all.
Where it needs to get to There is one place things live, and the people who need something can go and get it without having to ask permission first.
04
Measurement & feedback
Where it usually starts Decisions get made on impressions. Everyone has a feeling about how it is going and nobody is able to check.
Where it needs to get to A small number of things get counted, and somebody looks at them on a schedule. Not a dashboard nobody opens. A short list somebody is responsible for reading.
05
Decision-making
Where it usually starts Decisions get discussed, deferred, revisited, and sometimes quietly reversed. The same conversation happens three times and everyone is tired of it.
Where it needs to get to It is written down who decides what, and people decide inside their own scope without sending it up the chain.
06
Adoption & change
Where it usually starts New things get started and never stick. There is a graveyard of initiatives everyone remembers and nobody brings up.
Where it needs to get to New things arrive with training behind them, and somebody checks a month later whether anyone is actually using it.
Where this usually lands
Most people read this and recognize themselves in two or three. That is normal, and it is useful, because the two or three are usually connected. Fixing the right one first makes the others cheaper, and sometimes makes one of them go away on its own.
Working out which is what the first conversation is for. If you want to see what happens after that, it is on how it works.
Recognize your organization in any of that?
Tell me which ones, and we will work out whether it is something I can help with. Sometimes it is smaller than it looks from the inside.