The KMM exists to drive the development of organizational culture and management practices that enable improving customer satisfaction, business resilience, and reinvention. The KMM provides a validated playbook for predictable, successful implementation across a wide range of industries. First and foremost, its main benefit is to ensure effective evolution of enterprises toward resilient and adaptable organizations with the Kanban Method.

The KMM also provides the foundation for appraising organizational maturity to ensure appropriate implementation of the Kanban Method at the current level of maturity. Effectively, this provides a catalogue of patterns for that implementation at each level. Each of these, in turn, delivers business, cultural, organizational, psychological, and sociological benefits.

Implementing Kanban at Maturity Levels 0 through 2 provides differing levels of relief from overburdening. At Level 0, the focus is entirely on the individual. An individual kanban board enables individuals to place limits on their current work and provides a way to get relief from too much work-in-progress. This results in happier individuals who take pride in their work and focus on finishing, with high quality, tasks that they have started.

Tasks are completed faster, with greater predictability, and rework is reduced. There is little to no concept of service delivery, however, and the customer experience is that service delivery is unfit-for-purpose.

At Level 1, the scale of Kanban implementation grows to a team level, which affords a team the opportunity for relief from too much work-in-progress. This results in happier teams taking pride in collaborative work and focusing on finishing, with high quality, tasks that they have started. Tasks are completed faster, with greater predictability, and rework is reduced. As with Level 0, the customer experience is that service delivery is unfit-for-purpose.

At Level 2, an understanding of a service delivery workflow, or value stream, emerges. Each team or individual in the workflow is locally relieved of overburdening, but the whole system may still be overwhelmed with work, and queues or buffers between value-adding functions may be extensive. Queuing discipline is often ad hoc or non-deterministic and, as a consequence, although individuals and teams produce more work faster, with both higher quality and less rework, the entire system fails to exhibit predictability. From an external perspective, Maturity Level 2 offers few additional benefits over Level 1. From an internal perspective, though, more teams are happier, completing more work with greater pride of workmanship and motivation to improve further.

At Maturity Levels 0 through 2, local cycle times may be reduced, but the customer’s experience of lead time and predictability is that things take too long, and lead time is to variable; in short, service delivery is unpredictable and remains unfit-for-purpose some or most of the time—although less so at ML2 than at ML1 or ML0. The customer might show sympathy toward an improving level of service delivery, but overall, service levels remain unsatisfactory.

At Maturity Level 3, an end-to-end workflow, value stream, or system is now relieved of overburdening. Queues or buffers between value-adding steps are greatly reduced in size, and queuing discipline, defined by classes of service, is emerging. Consequently, lead times are reduced dramatically, as is the variation, or tail, in the lead time distribution function. The customer experience is faster service with greater predictability. At Level3, customers are likely to start reporting that service delivery is fit-for-purpose.

Service Delivery

The KMM makes the role of the customer explicit, first introducing it at Maturity Level 2, and defining Maturity Level 3 by the outcome that customer expectations are met satisfactorily. The Kanban Method exists in its original form to provide better customer service and to achieve it through incremental, evolutionary change. Whether a change represents an improvement is defined through the eyes of the customer. This concept is formalized in the Fit-for-Purpose Framework, with the notion that customer fitness criteria drive the design, implementation, and service delivery (or experience of consumption) of a product or service. These concepts and practices are captured in the model at Maturity Levels 3 and 4. Pursuing and achieving Maturity Level 3 using the KMM provides the direct business benefit that customer expectations are regularly met, that customers are satisfied, and that the business is strongly driven by a sense of purpose—to serve the customer and fulfil their needs and expectations.

From Maturity Level 1 on up, the KMM introduces various feedback mechanisms (visualization, metrics, Kanban Cadences, cultural values) and decision-making frameworks (metrics, policies, leadership actions) that develop the enterprise’s abilities to adapt quickly to changes in customer expectations, market conditions, and business context.

At Maturity Level 4, the organization has a firm grasp of systems thinking and views itself as a network of interdependent services—a system of systems. Each service may have implemented a kanban system. The effect is that work with complex dependencies can be delivered efficiently, with little delay, as a result of interdependent work orders across the network. There is a high level of predictability, even for work with complex dependencies. The customer experience is that, even for large, complex work requests, the service delivery is fit-for-purpose. Adopting the service-oriented organizational (SOO) paradigm and developing the skills to quickly rearrange the services to construct new ones without adversely affecting those already in place allow for faster recovery from exceptional, emergent circumstances, which is fundamental to business resilience and adaptability. Developing a culture of empowered people, customer focus, aligned action around a shared purpose, and leadership at all levels is the foundation and the key success factor for building a resilient and adaptable business.

Risk Management and Improved Economic Performance

At Maturity Level 4, the business’s economic performance improves dramatically. Both better governance and appropriate risk hedging improve revenues, margins, and cost control. Demand shaping, capacity allocation, advanced forms of classes of service, risk-assessment techniques, and a strong triage capability that separates work into three categories—do it now; leave it until later, but with a specific schedule; or choose not to do it at all—all contribute to highly predictable outcomes and superior economic results. At Maturity Level 5, a continuous improvement culture and the use of quantitative analysis of system capability metrics contributes to ever-improving economic results without the loss of customer satisfaction or fitness-for-purpose.

Maturity Levels 1 through 5 provide various scales of single-loop learning—the organization is getting better at what it does and how it does it. Maturity Level 6 sees the emergence of two forms of double-loop learning: the business’s ability to question how and what it makes, as well as why it exists and what it is—and whether that identity and/ or purpose remains relevant. This manifests as leadership’s capability to question:

• Is our strategy correct? Are we offering the right products and services to the right markets? Should we redefine our market segmentation and change the products and services we offer?
• If people are not buying what we are selling, is it because we aren’t fit-for-purpose or is it because the market has moved on and changed its needs and desires?
• Is our purpose for existing still relevant? Has our purpose been overtaken by events, or obviated by new technologies or societal or social changes?
• Do we as a business have the right identity for the current business, political, economic, and technological environments in which we compete?

A Level 6 organization is capable of both questioning its own identity and reinventing itself in a new image, with a new identity.

Although some elements of double-loop learning that manifest in Kanban implementations, such as Strategy Review, may emerge at lower levels, their effectiveness is diminished because of lower maturity across the rest of the organization. For example, what is the point of defining new markets and new services to offer if the organization is not capable of reconfiguring itself to offer them in a timely and effective manner? What is the point of targeting new market segments if the organization is not capable of meeting the product specification, quality, or service delivery expectations of customers in that segment? What is the point of targeting new markets with new products if the organization cannot guarantee to exploit them profitably? Put simply, implementing Level 6 practices in a Level 2 organization is likely to be ineffective, and it might result in disappointment, finger-pointing, and assigning blame for failure. The difference between identity and/or purpose change—a so-called pivot—at Maturity Level 2 is that luck and/or heroic effort from individuals or managers is likely necessary to achieve it, while at Maturity Level 6, an identity and/or purpose change is a controlled and managed strategic activity—heroes are not mandatory.

Maturity Level 6 organizations are robust to rapidly changing external environments. They can react quickly and effectively to disruptive, discontinuous technological innovation; or to changes in the regulatory environment, the political or economic climate, or customer tastes; or to raised customer expectations.

The quality and consistency of work done, or services performed is entirely associated with individuals and their capabilities, skills, experience, and judgment. The customer experience depends entirely on which staff member performs the work. The organization, and its performance is extremely fragile to changes in personnel.

People in lower-maturity organizations at Levels 0 through 2 tend to have an individualistic focus on their identity or their culture: Who am I? and What’s in it for me? Or at a team level, Who are we? and What’s in it for us? There can be selfishness in low-maturity organizations, or in the workers and their teams. Individuals, teams, or the whole organization may cast themselves as victims, with a culture of shared affinity in victimhood, powerless to affect their circumstances or break free from an abusive environment.

Alternatively, lower-maturity organizations are nascent, emerging, and perhaps working in nascent or emergent markets. They are still finding themselves, defining who they are and why they exist. With enough time and leadership, they might mature to Level 3 or beyond.

Low-maturity organizations are often highly socially cohesive, and conformance to social norms and established tribal behaviors tends to drive decision making and outcomes. Consequently, there is considerable inertia against change. In highly socially cohesive cultures, change must come from the top. Leaders must signal changes and give permission for them to happen. They must communicate a change in “how we see ourselves”—the self-image and identity of the organization—and perhaps a change in “what we value”— the organizational values. Dependence on a single strong leader implies fragility.

Maturity Level 1 is described as “never the same way twice” because there is little to no cooperation amongst teams, and service delivery workflows are at best emergent. There is no consistency in a desired outcome. Work is not seen as a combination of services, and customers perceive service delivery as unreliable. There is considerable luck attached to whether a product or service is “fit-for-purpose.” Customers with sufficient transparency show a preference for or demand the involvement of specific individuals on their work requests as a means to mitigate risks of inconsistent, poor performance and resulting disappointment.

Customers have their favourite superhero. Like Maturity Level 0, customer trust is held with individuals, not in the organization or its systems and processes. Observable outcomes depend on who is working on this shift, project, or product increment. Th e customer experience is incredibly variable. If the customer is satisfied, it is usually the result of individual heroics. You know you are dealing with a Maturity Level 1 organization when you see a recruitment advertisement with the headline, “Ninja developer required for dynamic environment,” which we translate as, “We need a hero for our emergent workflow that produces extremely unpredictable outcomes.”

People in lower-maturity organizations at Levels 0 through 2 tend to have an individualistic focus on their identity or their culture: Who am I? and What’s in it for me? Or at a team level, Who are we? and What’s in it for us? There can be selfishness in low-maturity organizations, or in the workers and their teams. Individuals, teams, or the whole organization may cast themselves as victims, with a culture of shared affinity in victimhood, powerless to affect their circumstances or break free from an abusive environment.

Alternatively, lower-maturity organizations are nascent, emerging, and perhaps working in nascent or emergent markets. They are still finding themselves, defining who they are and why they exist. With enough time and leadership, they might mature to Level 3 or beyond.

Low-maturity organizations are often highly socially cohesive, and conformance to social norms and established tribal behaviors tends to drive decision making and outcomes. Consequently, there is considerable inertia against change. In highly socially cohesive cultures, change must come from the top. Leaders must signal changes and give permission for them to happen. They must communicate a change in “how we see ourselves”—the self-image and identity of the organization—and perhaps a change in “what we value”— the organizational values. Dependence on a single strong leader implies fragility.

Maturity Level 2 is characterized as “never the same result twice.” We now have stable, defined practices and workflow, but the results fail to meet customer expectations consistently.

People in lower-maturity organizations at Levels 0 through 2 tend to have an individualistic focus on their identity or their culture: Who am I? and What’s in it for me? Or at a team level, Who are we? and What’s in it for us? There can be selfishness in low-maturity organizations, or in the workers and their teams. Individuals, teams, or the whole organization may cast themselves as victims, with a culture of shared affinity in victimhood, powerless to affect their circumstances or break free from an abusive environment.

Alternatively, lower-maturity organizations are nascent, emerging, and perhaps working in nascent or emergent markets. They are still finding themselves, defining who they are and why they exist. With enough time and leadership, they might mature to Level 3 or beyond.

Low-maturity organizations are often highly socially cohesive, and conformance to social norms and established tribal behaviors tends to drive decision making and outcomes. Consequently, there is considerable inertia against change. In highly socially cohesive cultures, change must come from the top. Leaders must signal changes and give permission for them to happen. They must communicate a change in “how we see ourselves”—the self-image and identity of the organization—and perhaps a change in “what we value”— the organizational values. Dependence on a single strong leader implies fragility.

The customers’ expectations are met regularly and sufficiently well that customers are satisfied with the level of service. There is consistency of process and consistency of outcome. The organization has developed the capability to respond quickly to changing customer expectation.

However, Level 3 might not be sustainable in the long run. Although customers’ needs are met, other stakeholders’ needs may yet be lacking. The organization follows the changes in their customers’ needs but does not anticipate them. Level 3 could be martyrdom—the organization may satisfy the customers but lose money on every transaction.

At Maturity Level 3, an organization has a strong sense of “who we are” and is very comfortable with its identity. As such, it can focus energy and attention on the more important topic of “why we exist.” A Level 3 organization has a strong sense of purpose, defined and communicated by its leaders. Pursuit of that purpose is considered culturally more important than “who we are,” the collective identity and self-image of the organization.

As such, the organization is more flexible, more tolerant, more trusting, and, consequently, more agile through the cultural importance of “why we exist” rather than obsessing over “who we are.” Level 3 organizations have Einheit—unity and alignment behind a sense of purpose. Level 3 organizations can act with greater autonomy and exhibit greater agility because of this shared sense of purpose.

Maturity Level 4, as previously noted, is characterized as having no more surprises and everything in balance. ML4 is a long-term, sustainable version of Level 3. All stakeholders’ needs are now met in a sustainable fashion.

At Maturity Level 4, the organization understands very well “why we exist” and “who we are.” The focus now changes to “what we do” so that we deliver on “why we exist.” Selecting the right things to do to produce the best results is culturally important to a Level 4 organization. They don’t just know why they exist; they are good at delivering against that purpose because they select the right products or product features and the right services to best deliver on their goals, and they have a strong and justifiable sense of pride in who they are.

At ML5, the organization challenges what it does and how it does it and is willing to replace old methods with new ones in a controlled and experimental fashion. Customers and other stakeholders are continually satisfied. The business shakes off unexpected events; only a completely unforeseeable event can rock it from its market-leading position.

At Maturity Level 5, the organization and its people have a strong sense of who they are, are comfortable in their skin, know why they exist, believe in their purpose, and make good choices to deliver against that purpose effectively in a manner that customers love. This enables them to focus on “how we do it,” with a goal of being the best at what they do through superior processes and capabilities.

At this level, lines of business are dropped, and new ones begun. There is innovation and experimentation with new lines of business, and often, a transition from one dominant line of business to another. The history of IBM is particularly illustrative, moving from time-recording machines to mainframe computers, and then later reinventing itself as a professional services company. Today we see IBM feeling its way toward becoming an artificial-intelligence platform company with its Watson technology. The name Watson, a hat tip to its founder, is a clear indication that its leaders see AI as not only the future of the company but as its next core business.

At Maturity Level 6, an organization is capable of questioning and changing how, what, why, and who. Although it has a strong sense of how, what, why, and who, these ideas are loosely held. It has cohesion, unity, agreement, and pride in its collective mastery, but also a strong culture of challenging established norms and finding better ways. It values challenging established conventions, norms, and behaviors. It values innovation and embraces change. This is driven from an overarching value: the desire for longevity, the desire to survive for generations. A Level 6 organization recognizes that stubbornness, and a refusal to change its how, or its what, or its why, or even its identity—its self-image, its “who”—may lead to its extinction.

Outcomes are observable results and describe “what our business looks like” to customers, users, and stakeholders. Outcomes demonstrate whether our business is fit-for-purpose and, if it is, in which contexts. Outcomes also indicate whether our business is sustainable, robust, and likely to survive over the long term. Outcomes illustrate our resilience and demonstrate our ability to recover from setbacks and unexpected events.

The culture of an organization has a direct relationship to its ability to achieve a given level of maturity and maintain it consistently. To effectively reach high levels of maturity, senior leaders must view part of their role as culture hackers or, using more traditional language, as social engineers. If a leader desires the benefits of higher maturity levels, then it is their job to lead and steer the culture such that higher maturity is achievable.

At Maturity Level 0, individuals are responsible for handling their own tasks. Frequently, the person who performs the work is the user of its outcome as well; that is, the work consists of self-generated tasks rather than customer-requested work orders. The organization is oblivious to the need to follow a process. Workers are ambivalent about the value of management of organizational processes or policies.

Maturity Level 1, may be characterized as “never the same way twice.” Processes and ways of doing things are poorly understood and emergent, or undefined, with poor repeatability. Teams of workers may be oblivious to a wider context. There is an understanding of what the work is, but perhaps not how it should be done, what the finished product should look like, or what the customers expect of service delivery. There is little understanding of who the customer is or why they have requested the work. There is constant pressure to find new customers because former customers, reacting to the unreliable service, fail to return.

The organization remains oblivious to the need for processes, policies, and governance beyond the team level. Consequently, there is an observable lack of alignment among teams. This affects the consistency of product design and implementation as well as service delivery. Work is pushed into the process. Priority is set based on superstition, or political leverage, or is purely ad hoc and random. The process, system, or value stream is overloaded. Individuals are often overburdened, and heroics are routinely required. There is no concept of the system’s capability or capacity. Hence, it is impossible to try to balance demand against capability. There is an expectation that everything that is requested will be done. There is no triage capability nor opportunity to refuse work.

The workplace is stressful because of the inconsistency and poor quality, and there is a significant amount of rework. It is highly likely that loss of discipline occurs when workers are under stress and handling exceptional circumstances. When stressed, the organizational maturity is likely to slip back to Level 0, and then the organization relies entirely on individual heroics to pull out of a crisis.

Characterized as “never the same result twice,” Maturity Level 2 organizations exhibit consistency of process, but not necessarily consistency of outcomes. Processes, workflows, policies, and decision frameworks are understood, defined, and are repeatable. New staff members are trained in “how we do things around here.” Work is done consistently regardless of who is doing it. There is an understanding of what the work is, and both how it should be done and what the finished product should look like, including the service delivery expectations. However, there may not be a full understanding of who the customer is or why they have requested the work.

This is most often true for shared and internal services that lack visibility to the end customer as well as the motivation or purpose behind a work request or the risks associated with that work or its delivery. Consequently, there may be an observable lack of alignment among teams and interdependent service workflows. This affects how the customer views the consistency of service delivery. The workplace is notably less stressful because of both the consistency of process and that there are defined roles and responsibilities.

Workers know what is expected of them and what they can expect of their colleagues. Poor quality is still an issue, though less so than at Level 1, and there is still some rework. Some pressure to find new customers remains because some existing customers fail to return as a reaction to the unreliable service. Additionally, there is some tendency to lose discipline when under stress and handling exceptional circumstances. When stressed, the organizational maturity tends to slip back to Level 1.

At ML2, there is less reliance on individual heroics than at previous levels; however, because the processes do not produce consistent outcomes, the organization relies on heroic managers to expedite important customer requests. Customers come to learn that they can trust certain managers and may insist that they manage their projects or ensure expedient, effective delivery. Customers do not yet trust the organization or its systems.

Maturity Level 3 can be characterized by a line from a famous Stranglers song: “No more heroes anymore.” The organization now has consistent processes, policy usage, and decision frameworks as well as desired outcomes. Product design, quality, and service delivery are all within customer expectations and tolerance levels. The organization is considered trustworthy. Its customers are satisfied.

At Level 3, the organization understands what the work is—both how it should be done and what the finished product should look like—as well as what the service delivery expectations are. There is a strong sense of unity and purpose along the value stream or across the workflow, a sense of a larger team collaborating to deliver a piece of work. The teams fully understand who the customer is and why they have requested the work, so there is a strong sense of fulfilment amongst the workers when delivering finished work.

The workplace runs very smoothly under both normal and exceptional circumstances, with little tendency to panic under stress. There is a strong sense of process, roles, and responsibilities, and workers know how to react to unusual or exceptional circumstances. There is little urgency to find new customers because existing customers provide steady demand.

The product or service is now completely “fit-for-purpose,” which is achieved without heroics. Instead, people rely on defined methods, processes, and decision frameworks. Organizational capability and performance are now resilient. Customers now trust that work is done consistently, and they no longer request specific individuals or managers to handle their work.

People are now thinking explicitly about services from an external, customer-facing perspective. The notion that the organization consists of a network of interdependent services is starting to emerge, along with some recognition of the power and efficiency of effective shared services.

There is a clear metrics and reporting strategy with fitness criteria, improvement drivers, and general health indicators being used appropriately. The process is instrumented to collect and report customer fitness criteria metrics. Improvement-driver metrics may also be actively used. Metrics and measures tend to be end to end, with only specific improvement drivers focused on local activities or value-adding steps. The presence of vanity metrics is unusual but may exist for cultural reasons or may be explained as evolutionary relics to which there is an emotional attachment, and the conditions needed to successfully remove them have not yet materialized.

Despite the considerable instrumentation and availability of metrics, decision making remains mostly qualitative or emotionally driven.

At Maturity Level 4, design, implementation, and service delivery are routinely fit-for-purpose. Consistency of both process and outcome relieves a lot of stress, and the organization shifts its focus to economic outcomes as well as to developing robustness against unforeseen events and exceptional circumstances. The organization now pays attention to quantitative risk management and economics. The question is now whether it can achieve consistency of delivery within economic expectations of cost or margin, and whether performance can be robust to unforeseen circumstances through appropriate risk hedging. Quantitative analysis of metrics and measures becomes more important. The goal is to be ever fitter-for-purpose from the perspectives of a variety of stakeholders.

In addition to all of the Maturity Level 3 behaviors, a Maturity Level 4 organization has a consistent economic performance, such as steadily meeting particular cost targets and margins. The concept of everything in balance now applies across customers, types of demand, risk categories, and a variety of stakeholders. While Maturity Level 3 introduced balance between demand and capability to supply, Level 4 extends that to ensure fairness and appropriate risk hedging. At Level 4, an organization seeks a risk-balanced, predictable economic performance.

Work is now classified by customer risks, and a variety of classes of service is offered. Demand shaping or capacity limitations by work type and class of risk are present. Triage is now driven by risk assessment, and class of service is directly linked to risk. Scheduling is influenced by cost of delay and a quantitative understanding of service delivery risks such as the probability distribution of lead time.

Under stress, the organization follows emergency or exception procedures and takes mitigation and remedial action to reduce the likelihood and/or impact of such an occurrence, or to completely prevent a recurrence.

Organizational capability and performance are now robust. Risk hedging is effective against the occurrence of unforeseen, though not unforeseeable, events. Customers now trust that work is done consistently, and there are no customer requests for specific workers or managers. Managers, shareholders, and other stakeholders, such as regulatory authorities, now trust that work is conducted within defined constraints and that economic outcomes are within a defined range of expectations.

The organization now extensively uses systems thinking and has a service orientation. Organizational units are now forming around defined services with known and understood dependencies. Shared services are recognized as a highly effective and efficient approach and therefore are desirable economically. It is understood that they provide an advantage to organizational agility—the ability to reconfigure quickly to changing market, regulatory, or political conditions.

There is a notable shift to quantitative decision making, and a cultural norm is established that decisions must be underpinned with solid data, with risks assessed and adequately hedged prior to action.

At Maturity Level 5, not only have design, implementation, and service delivery become routinely fit-for-purpose, the business is now entirely fit-for-purpose from a shareholder’s perspective. The focus is now on optimizing for efficiency and improved economic outcomes, increasing productivity without sacrificing quality, increasing margins, extracting premium prices for premium classes of service or quality, minimizing costs, and optimizing the value of work done through a superior prioritization and triage capability. The goal at ML5 is to be fittest-for-purpose. A strong culture of continuous improvement has emerged, and acts of leadership at all levels contribute to improved performance.

The workforce feels empowered to suggest and implement changes. Workers have a sense of ownership over their own processes and a sense of pride in their capabilities and outcomes. There is a culture of seeking forgiveness rather than asking permission, and consequently the organization is able to act and move quickly. Individual units can act with autonomy while remaining aligned with strategy, goals, and objectives. The organization has agility through a service-oriented organizational design. It is readily reconfigured to offer new services and/or classes of service by orchestrating and tailoring existing services using a customer-facing service delivery kanban system. The business is now solidly robust to changing customer expectations and other externalities.

There is extensive process instrumentation. Improvement opportunities are aligned with customer fitness criteria metrics. Improvement driver metrics are formally established.

Improvement drivers have achievable targets. Improvement initiatives are predictive, model-driven, and there is a known causation between improvement action and forecast outcome. Significant job satisfaction is now derived from delivering improvements, as delivering customer-requested work within expectations and to the customer’s satisfaction is now routine and is taken for granted.

Economic performance is improving consistently. Process improvement is used as a competitive weapon and an enabler of new services, new classes of service, new markets, and new market segments. Competitors are being outmanoeuvred by superior organizational agility, enabling new and better products and services faster than ever.

At Maturity Level 6 a business can claim that it is truly built for survival. At Level 6, it practices several double loop learning exercises. The business is capable of asking the following questions:

• Is the way we do things still competitive? Are new technologies, processes, methods, or means becoming available that we should be investigating or adopting?
• Do we offer the right products and services? And if not, how should we change?
• Are we serving the right markets? And are we capable of serving our chosen markets adequately?
• Who are we as an organization? Is our current identity relevant and appropriate, or do we need to reinvent ourselves?

These are correctly characterized as strategic concerns, and answering these questions is a key part of strategic planning. Although the ability to challenge some of these four areas (using double-loop learning) may occur at shallower maturity levels, a Level 6 organization can challenge all four—how, what, why, and who. A Level 6 organization not only is capable of doing this strategic planning work, but it also exhibits alignment of capability and service provision with that strategy. When the strategy needs to change, the organization quickly reconfigures to align with the changes. Th is concept of strategy being continually aligned to operational capabilities is referred to as congruent action.

Congruent action is leadership that everyone can believe in. A congruent organization is set up for success. Such an organization is extremely robust and adaptable to changing externalities, including disruptive, discontinuous innovation, and hence not only exhibits longevity but absorbs dramatic changes to its strategy relatively easily without significant impact to economic performance.

A Maturity Level 6 organization exhibits all the behaviors associated with Level 5. In addition, it has a strong strategic planning capability and uses Strategy Reviews to question current market segmentation and its product and service mix, to compare observed capability with strategy, and to define a strategy against which the organization is capable of successfully delivering.

At this level, extensive market instrumentation provides feedback on whether the firm’s products and services are viewed as fit-for-purpose. Market segments are oriented around customer purpose. The entire business is service oriented and driven by service delivery. It assesses design, implementation, and service delivery capabilities against expectations in each market segment. The organization is capable of transparently reporting its fitness-for-purpose in each segment. Improvement actions are driven by a desire to amplify a segment or switch it off.

There is a strong sense of identity and an institutionalized understanding of who we are as an organization and how that affects decision making. However, although identity is well understood, the organization is not dogmatically, blindly attached to it. There is a recognized willingness to evolve and move with the times. Senior leaders understand their role as social engineers in defining and managing the identity of the business and its workforce as a social group. Defining and actively managing the culture of the firm is recognized as the main task of senior leaders. Identity management is an organizational capability. Tangible actions to manage the identity of the business and the sociology of the workforce are observable.