Knowledge Base · Measurement
What is a CI maturity assessment, and how do I use one?
It is a structured scorecard of how well a team actually practises improvement, covering leadership, huddles, problem-solving and results, used to set an honest baseline. The book describes a Site Maturity Assessment at a large insurer, with each site then working a 100-day plan toward five points of improvement per quarter.
A CI maturity assessment is a scorecard that rates how well a team or site actually practises continuous improvement, across the things that make it real: leadership engagement, the quality of daily huddles, problem-solving habits, and the tangible results of improvement projects. Chapter 1 of the book describes building one, called the Site Maturity Assessment, to deploy a CI framework across multiple sites of a large insurer.
The problem it solved is familiar: every site claimed to be improving, each in its own way, and leadership had no honest picture of where the framework was alive and where it was a corporate checklist. Dozens of scored factors produced an objective baseline for every location, a single number that could be compared and, more importantly, a breakdown that showed which factors were holding each site back.
The assessment is the diagnosis, not the treatment. In the book, each site's leadership then co-created a 100-day plan aimed at a few of its weakest factors, with an ambitious but achievable target: improve the maturity score by five points every quarter. Chapter 5 notes that the score itself passed all four KPI tests, including being actionable precisely because the assessment named the specific areas to work on.
For a smaller organisation the same pattern scales down: one page of factors, scored honestly with the team in the room, one baseline, then a short plan against the two or three lowest scores and a re-score date in the diary. The value is not the number. It is replacing competing impressions about how we are doing with one shared, evidence-based picture.
Related questions
- How do I run a 100-day improvement plan?
- What are the four tests of a good KPI?
- What questions should I ask on a gemba walk?
Source: Continuous Improvement in the Workplace, Ch. 1 (Understanding Continuous Improvement), Ch. 3 (Learning to See) and Ch. 5 (Measuring Success and Ensuring Sustainability).