Climbing the SLM Maturity Ladder

Last week, one of my posts introduced Peter Armstrong's paper about IT-Business alignment. BMC has just published a new whitepaper by Peter -- Taking IT to the Next Level -- about the challenges IT organizations face as they evolve from a cost center to a creator of business value.

Peter uses the Gartner IT Management Process Maturity Model, pictured above, to represent the five possible maturity levels of IT organizations. This is an excellent way for companies to measure their progress in implementing systematic Service Level Management (SLM) processes. In his whitepaper, Peter is focusing on climbing the ladder from Level 3 (Proactive) to Levels 4 (Service) and 5 (Value).

It occurs to me that a Maturity Model may be the corporate equivalent of a Twelve-Step Program -- to get better you must first admit you have a problem. That's why so many companies are still stuck at Level 1 (Chaotic), while others who are forever coping with the problem of the day at Level 2 (Reactive) would be really happy to establish to firm foothold at Level 3!