How to Run a Maturity Assessment Workshop With Your Team

The fastest way to get a misleading maturity score is to have one senior person fill in the assessment on their own. They will answer honestly, but they will answer from where they sit. Leaders tend to see the policy; the people doing the work see what actually happens.

A workshop fixes this. Several people complete the same assessment independently, then come together to compare answers, discuss the differences and agree what to do next. Done well, it takes about two hours and produces something more valuable than a score: a shared understanding of where you are, and a short list of improvements that everyone has had a hand in choosing.

This guide sets out a format that works. We use the Change Management assessment as the worked example, but the same approach applies to any maturity model.

Before the workshop

Pick one model and one scope

Choose a single maturity model and be clear about what you are assessing. "Change management across the whole organisation" will produce a muddier picture than "change management in our operations division" or "how we managed last year's system rollout". A narrower scope gives sharper answers.

If you are not sure which area to assess, our article on maturity model examples suggests where to start.

Invite a mix of perspectives

Aim for six to ten people. Fewer and you miss viewpoints; more and the discussion becomes hard to manage. Deliberately include:

• Someone senior who can commit to the actions.
• People who do the work day to day, who know what really happens.
• Someone affected by the capability but outside it. For change management, that might be a team leader who has been on the receiving end of several changes.
• A sceptic. The person most likely to say "that's not how it works here" is often the most valuable participant.

Collect answers independently, in advance

Ask everyone to complete the assessment on their own a few days before the session. This matters more than anything else in the format. If people answer together in the room, they anchor on whoever speaks first, usually the most senior person.

On this site, each person's answers are saved in their results link, so participants can simply send you their link when they finish. Nothing is stored on a server, which helps people feel comfortable answering candidly.

Prepare a comparison

Before the workshop, put everyone's answers side by side. For each question, note the spread: did everyone pick the same level, or did answers range from level 1 to level 3? You do not need anything sophisticated; a simple spreadsheet with one row per question and one column per person works well.

Sort the questions into three groups:

1. Agreement at a low level. Clear weaknesses that everyone recognises.
2. Agreement at a high level. Genuine strengths.
3. Disagreement. Questions where answers differ by a level or more.

The third group is where the workshop earns its keep.

Running the session

Opening (10 minutes)

Explain the purpose: not to grade anyone, but to get an honest picture and pick a few improvements. Say explicitly that differences of view are useful, and that nobody's answers will be shared outside the room by name.

Strengths first (15 minutes)

Briefly go through the areas of strong agreement at a high level. This sets a constructive tone and reminds people that not everything needs fixing. Ask, "What makes this work well here, and is it written down anywhere or does it depend on particular people?"

The disagreements (45 minutes)

Take the questions with the biggest spread, one at a time. For each:

1. Read out the question and the three answer descriptions.
2. Ask someone who chose a lower level to describe what they have seen.
3. Ask someone who chose a higher level to do the same.
4. Look for the reason for the difference.

The reasons usually fall into a few patterns:

• Different parts of the organisation genuinely work differently. That is a finding in itself: practice is inconsistent.
• Policy versus reality. One person knows the process exists; another knows it is not followed.
• Recent versus older experience. Things may have improved, or slipped, recently.
• Different readings of the question. Clarify and move on.

Then agree a single answer that best describes reality. Where practice varies, the honest answer is usually the lower one, because a capability that only works in some places is not yet consistent.

Weaknesses and priorities (30 minutes)

Now look at the agreed picture as a whole. In the Change Management model, for example, you might find that planning and communication are reasonably strong, but sustaining change after go-live is weak: nobody checks whether new ways of working have stuck, and old habits return within months.

Ask the group to pick no more than three improvements. A useful test for each candidate is:

• Does it address a weakness everyone recognises?
• Would it make a visible difference within six months?
• Is there someone in the room willing to own it?

The "Where to focus" section of the results report helps here, because it shows what the next level looks like for each low-scoring question. Moving from "success is declared at go-live" to "adoption is checked at agreed points after go-live" is a concrete step a team can take, unlike a vague aim to "embed change better".

Close (10 minutes)

Confirm the owners, the first action for each improvement and a date to reassess. Thank people for their candour, particularly anyone who raised uncomfortable points.

After the workshop

Write up a one-page summary within a couple of days: the agreed scores by area, the main themes from the disagreements, the three priorities and their owners. Keep individual answers private.

Then put the reassessment in the diary. Six to twelve months is usually right; any sooner and little will have changed, any later and momentum fades. Running the same assessment with the same group makes progress easy to see.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Letting the most senior person answer first. Collect answers in advance, always.
• Averaging away the disagreement. A team where half say level 1 and half say level 3 does not have a level 2 capability. It has an inconsistent one.
• Choosing ten priorities. Three is plenty. Ten means none get done.
• Treating the score as the outcome. The score is a starting point for a conversation. The outcome is the improvements you agree and deliver.

Frequently asked questions

Can we run the workshop remotely?

Yes. Ask people to complete the assessment in advance and share their links, then run the discussion on a video call with the comparison on screen. Keep the session shorter, around 90 minutes, and use breakout rooms if the group is large.

Should we use an external facilitator?

It helps when the topic is sensitive or when senior leaders are in the room, because a neutral facilitator can draw out quieter voices. For most teams, a well-prepared internal facilitator who is not the most senior person present works fine.

How do we handle someone who dominates the discussion?

Go round the room for each disagreement, asking each person for their example before opening the floor. Starting with those who chose different answers keeps the focus on evidence rather than seniority.