Process Maturity Assessment for the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management

The Issue at hand

The Dutch government got new guidelines on how to implement their LifeCycle Management processes, and all organizations had to carry out a baseline measurement. The Ministry of I&W is responsible for the maintenance of all infrastructure in the Netherlands, including roads, canals, etc. They wished to have a third party assess the maturity of their LCM processes on the model provided by the Dutch government in a governance document called 'the LCM covenant'. Although the scope of LCM formally includes also aspects like IT infrastructure components and algorithms, the scope of this baseline measurement was applications only.

The maturity assessment needed to be done on both the departmental level and rolled up to the ministry level.

The Service Provided

We carried out a documentation study of the available LCM documents in the various departments of the ministry, and we interviewed the people responsible for LCM management. We built an assessment model where the maturity of the departments was assessed on a rate of 1 (low maturity) to 5 (very high maturity) on several aspects, like, availability of a policy on LCM, a shared vision on LCM, an integral LCM tool, and relevant change procedures, etc.

The outcomes achieved

The report showed the baseline measurement results with an LCM maturity score of 1 to 5 on the different aspects and per ministry department. It showed the more mature departments and the departments that needed to improve to reach the goal level of 3. Also, it showed the metrics at the ministry level, which could be used in meetings with the governing agencies as a starting point for actions to improve overall maturity over time. The report also gave practical insights and advice, for instance, regarding implementing a single source of truth, by implementing a portfolio management tool where all relevant information about all (critical) applications is stored, including measurement data like maintainability, technical debt, size, maintenance costs, and plans for that application.