Module 07 · 20 min
Measuring Capability
Culture with process maturity built in
The other side of the equation. The pendulum, the nine-level management culture spiral with its Capability Maturity Model equivalents, and the Organisational Capability Indicator.
Why capability, not just change management
“Organizations that concentrate on the technological aspects of ERP and ignore the softer components of implementation often fail. ERP is about people, not just technology.”
“There is little success in the practice of change initiatives, mainly due to the difficulty of changing the basic ways of thinking within the organisation.”
“Each of the functional heads wants their piece of the pie and nobody wants to spend on someone else's need to have data from their world. They aren't focused on what's good for the whole.”
None of these are project problems. They are standing properties of the organisation that the project inherits on day one.
The Organisational Culture model
Culture here is not values on a poster. It is the observable management style: how decisions get made, how information moves, and how much discretion people actually have. Underneath every level of it sits one tension — between the organisation and the individual.
The pendulum does not simply swing back and forth. Each time it passes through balance the organisation has moved up a level, so the swing traces a widening spiral. That gives nine levels of management culture, arranged around the two axes: levels 1, 5 and 9 sit on the point of balance — the 'pragmatist' positions — while the others sit out on the organisation side or the individual side.
Now walk the levels one at a time. Each one is written to you, describing an organisation you either recognise or don't. The external axis is process maturity, so each level also carries its equivalent from Watts Humphrey's Capability Maturity Model rather than being assessed separately.
Level 1 — Pragmatist / Anarchic
CMM: InitialPoint of balanceIn your organisation, it's the results that count.
Management is arms-length and rewards success, so individual members of the team are left to do more or less what they like, as long as they achieve results.
There are some laid-down procedures, but people only follow them or take up a new initiative if they see benefits for themselves in doing so.
On the process side: Processes are ad hoc and applied inconsistently — success depends on individuals.
The Organisational capability Indicator
Because the external axis of the culture model is process maturity, one score covers both. The question is not to score every dimension separately, but to pick the single level that sounds most familiar. That level is your Organisational capability Indicator — an assessment of this organisation's ability to manage change and take advantage of modernisation and transformation investment. Use the tool below to place yourself, then carry the score into Module 8.
Interactive tool
Where would you place your organisation?
The nine levels are described above. Pick the one that sounds most familiar — that single level is your Organisational Capability Indicator.
3 / 9
Dialectic
People and knowledge-sharing are valued; networking is encouraged and change is consultative.
Rule of the spiral: each level is only achievable when the levels below it are genuinely in place — on the process side as well as the people side.
Key takeaways
- capability is one scale: management culture with process maturity built into it, from Initial to Integrated.
- Culture levels are cumulative: you cannot skip levels on the spiral.
- capability is inherited by the project, not created by it.
Take it back to work
- Ask three people at different levels of your organisation to score the culture. How far apart are their answers, and what does the gap tell you?