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In June, Gartner launched an Open Government Maturity Model which “provides government CIOs and strategic planners with a framework to measure the maturity level of their organization’s capabilities to effectively and efficiently engage constituents and other stakeholders in transforming service delivery and operations”.
Gartner analyst Andreas Di Maio says:
It should be used as a key tools in managing the direction of an open government and government transformation program. It consists of five levels, ranging from scenarios in which organizations are unaware of or denying the pressure for socialization and commoditization of processes, data and services, through to higher levels in which open government becomes a funded, enterprisewide strategy covering all relevant aspects of stakeholder engagement.
The ultimate level of maturity is where constituent engagement fuels service and operation transformation, leading to measurable and foreseeable improvements in the effectiveness and efficiency of government action.
The usual 5-level CMU CMMI rip-off. Come on, guys, can’t you be more creative? GAO’s new EAMMF has 7 levels! As for the levels, I also notice that the model takes outside inspiration: At its heart, it is Obama’s model (Government should be Transparent, Participatory, and Collaborative), or what Beth Noveck calls collaborative democracy, with a bottom and top layer on.
Actually, I am not sure Obama and Noveck would see the three core values of open government as three steps on a maturity ladder. The values are interrelated in more complex ways, I’d say. But of course, the open gov agenda has indeed moved along similar stages (well, at least the open data focus has often been the first step towards open government).
Speaking of ladders, I too thought of Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation when I saw the maturity model. Not for it similarity though, but for its lack of the upper steps of the ladder with the higher degrees of citizens control.
I’d love to hear more about what Gartner sees in the Level5. Engaged? Somehow I doubt they mean citizen control …
