Chapter 4: Appropriate Maturity

Maturity is useful only if it helps you make a decision. It becomes dangerous when it turns into a race toward the highest score.

Higher maturity is not automatically better.

A capability should be as mature as the business needs it to be—no more and no less. A low-frequency, low-risk activity may be perfectly healthy as an individual practice. A high-volume, regulated, customer-facing decision may require an integrated, monitored system. Treating both as candidates for maximum maturity wastes money and may create new risk.