Carcary Methodology Matters : IT - CMF is built on Rigour and Relevance

The maturity model in Information Systems (IS) research continues to grow in popularity, as an approach to evaluating and improving an organization's capabilities. In recent years, numerous maturity model contributions have been made; for example, in the areas of IT/business alignment, project management, and information life cycle management. However, concerns are expressed in the literature regarding the development process and foundations upon which some maturity models are developed. This white paper presents a high-level overview of the issues outlined in existing research regarding maturity model development. The paper further highlights how the development approach adopted for IT-CMF overcomes those concerns by building upon existing theories and methodologies, by following a rigorous development process that is based on a design science approach, and through externally validating the framework within numerous organizations. approach Maturity Models in IS Research Maturity is defined as " a measure to evaluate the capabilities of an organization in regards to a certain discipline " (Rosemann and de Bruin, 2005). Maturity models outline characteristics associated with the various levels of maturity, thereby serving as the basis for an organization's capability maturity assessment. In essence, these maturity models serve to help organizations to understand their " as is " situation and enable them to transition to the desired " to be " maturity, through deriving and implementing specific practices or improvement roadmaps. Such improvement roadmaps support a stepped progression with respect to organizations' capabilities, enabling them to fulfill the characteristics required to meet specific maturity levels. The maturity model approach in IS research has received growing interest in recent years (Becker et al, 2010; Mettler, 2009), in order to inform organizational continuous improvements and support either self-or third party maturity assessments. While the Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Model (CMM) for software development and the successor Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) are most prevalent in studies of maturity (Becker et al, 2010); nonetheless, several new maturity models have been developed in recent years. These focus on improving maturity in, for example, Despite the growing popularity of maturity assessments, there is some criticism regarding the methodological approaches adopted in their development. According to Becker et al (2010), IS research has " rarely endeavored into reflecting and developing theoretically sound maturity models " and as such there is a lack of evidence of scientifically rigorous methods in their development processes, with some models based on poor theoretical foundations (Mettler, 2009). …