Digital Maturity Framework
The framework identifies seventeen competencies: the key aspects of digital maturity. It also describes five levels for each of these competencies.You can use the framework by reading through and recognising where you are as an organisation, or by printing it out and using it in a workshop, giving people sticky dots to vote with.
For a record of where you are, and a set of tips for how to improve, we recommend doing the online assessment.
Digital maturity competencies |
Level 1 |
Level 2 |
Level 3 |
Level 4 |
Level 5 |
01. Culture | Sceptical Staff are wary of digital and try to avoid it. |
Respectful Staff are happy that specialists are dealing with digital. |
Participative The organisation understands the value of digital and wants to learn more. |
Inclusive Digital is seen as key to success and incorporated into everything. |
Fundamental Digital is the principal way to engage supporters and advance our mission. |
02. Leadership | Minimal There’s no clear digital leadership at any level. |
Restricted The digital lead is confined to a mostly tactical role. |
Supported The digital lead is able to be strategic, when time allows. |
Elevated At least one senior digital lead exists, and digital leadership is actively invested in. |
Intrinsic Digital is an integral part of the overall strategy and digital leadership is present at all levels and departments. |
03. Collaboration | Siloed Teams plan separately and message and resource clashes are discovered at the point of implementation on digital channels. |
Synchronised Teams plan separately and share plans in order to synchronise. Teams rarely significantly change their plans to accommodate other team’s plans. |
Planned Teams make plans together based on their objectives for the year. Teams are responsible for their own audience/product KPIs. |
Integrated There's an ongoing planning organisation-wide process to ensure consistency of messages/products for audiences, across channels. KPIs are shared across teams. |
Audience-first Planning starts with audience insight, in cross-organisation multi-skilled teams to best deliver my organisation’s strategy and objectives. |
04. Budget | Survival The budget only covers the bare essentials, such as website hosting. |
Maintenance The budget supports the current setup but doesn’t allow for improvements. |
Experimenting The budget allows for the testing of new ideas in priority areas. |
Growth The budget supports increasingly digital ways of thinking and doing. |
Sustainable A healthy budget for the ongoing evolution of digital operations increases impact. |
05. Innovation | Deprioritised Innovation is not considered important, or is not happening at all. |
Ad hoc Innovation occasionally happens as part of existing projects. |
Small-scale There is innovative re-imagining of some aspects of products or services. |
Coordinated Joined-up innovation is evolving the organisation. |
Embedded A structured innovation programme is creating transformational change. |
06. Capacity | Responsibility One or more digital staff look after the website and email. They may not have a digital background or skillset. |
Expertise Basic digital functions are covered by people with specialist skills and experience. |
Team There’s a central team of digital specialists, with some digital delivery in other teams. |
Function There’s a senior digital lead and a team, with growing digital opportunities in other teams. |
Capability Senior digital leadership leads strategy across the organisation with effective delivery teams. |
08. Recruitment | Essential There’s a focus on technical skills for the role looking after our digital channels. |
Specialist Specialist digital skills are in a digital team. By chance, not design, other teams may have individuals with digital skills. |
Generalist Broad digital mindsets and behaviours are required for jobs all around the organisation. |
Prevalent Relevant digital skills and behaviours are standardly included in job descriptions. |
Pervasive Recruits at all levels of hierarchy have a strong understanding of the digital mindset and insights. All job descriptions include relevant digital skills. |
08. Learning | Skill-sharing Digital experts teach others on an ad-hoc basis. The training budget is very small. |
Building literacy There’s a small budget for basic digital skills in digital expert roles. |
Centralised There’s training across all teams in my organisation to normalise digital skills. |
Multi-layered Digital upskilling is a priority for all. Teams understand their role in the digital change. |
Cultural Organisation’s L&D people lead on the development of digital skills and behaviours at all levels of my organisation. |
09. Project management | Inconsistent Project management is done differently for different projects. |
Basic Some common project management principles are used. |
Progressing Projects are managed through a structured but often lengthy process. This does not suit every area of activity in an organisation. |
Developing Agile project management principles and practice are used, mostly on digital projects and products. There is a launch, test and improve approach. |
Impactful Agile principles are consistently used in all projects to empower multi-skilled teams, improve efficiency and increase impact. |
10. Technology | Primitive Systems are limited in scope and aren’t integrated. They may be insecure. |
Outdated Systems aren’t keeping up with the needs of the organisation. |
Keeping up Systems are stable and enable basic operations. |
Effective Tools and systems are delivering regular improvements in effectiveness. |
Leading edge Interconnected tools and systems provide a smooth, effective internal and external user experience. |
11. Data | Chaotic Data in the organisation is scattered and online and offline activity data is used in isolation from each other. |
Understood Data is seen as important for the organisation. Quality and use is improving in some areas of work. |
Developing There’s a clear policy for data management. Data is integrated across most areas of work and analysed. |
Literate Quality, integrated data is used across much of the organisation to understand performance of activities. |
Driven Live data is used across the organisation to shape performance, decisions and strategy. |
12. Reporting | Sporadic KPIs exist, but progress is only reported at the senior level. There is not much clarity on how they illustrate progress. |
Tactical Relevant KPIs are set and reported against, but the lessons aren’t always used in planning. |
Aggregated Performance data is collected and joined up, but is hard to access. |
Integrated Holistic performance data is quickly and easily accessible. |
Real-time Holistic performance data is always available and is used in planning and to make decisions. |
13. Insight | Gathering Insights are gathered and used in a silo of a team that commissioned them. |
Understanding Insights from more than one source are combined to build understanding. |
Analysing Knowledge about who people are is combined with behavioural insights. |
Acting on Insights are used to shape planning and delivery. Some products are optimised based on data analysis for better results. |
Learning from All work and strategy are grounded in rich, up-to-date insight distilled from the holistic data pool and optimised to improve results and impact. |
14. Communications | Unspecific Digital is used to mainly broadcast to audiences the priorities of different teams in the organisation. |
Consultative Digital (technology) advice is sought by non-digital staff, when judged it’s needed. |
Inclusive Digital insights are used from the outset in communications and audience journey planning. |
Strategic Communications are designed to be digital by default. Audience journeys are planned by multi-skilled cross-organisation teams. |
Transformational Digital is used to create engagement opportunities which are continuously optimised to achieve best conversion into long term engagement. |
15. Optimisation | Non-existent Organisation evaluates projects at the end. Lessons are not always used for new projects. |
Ad-based Social media ads are optimised by an agency. Some of these insights are used in planning of social media content. |
Journey-based Every bit of an audience journey is optimised - messaging, content, layout - in order to increase conversions. |
Product-based Organisation continuously looks at data in order to optimise every part of a product in order to provide good user experience, simplify and/or automate processes and increase conversions. |
Organisation-based Organisation regularly looks at dashboards in order to measure progress of strategy and tweak/adjust/change on the go in order to improve the outcomes. |
16. Internal systems | Inefficient Some systems have been digitised but we still have inefficient systems as automation has not been utilised. |
Inconsistent Some excellent digital tools are available but their take-up has been patchy due to the lack of staff engagement. |
Discretional Good digital tools are available, with onboarding and support on request. |
Effective There is an investment in digital tools that improve the working lives of staff who are engaged in the design of technology and processes. |
Efficient A comprehensive suite of connected digital tools, co-designed with affected staff is widely used. Automation/AI significantly reduces repetitive tasks. |
17. Service delivery | Basic Information is shared online. Traditional offline services are signposted from the website. |
Supplementary There is some experimentation with service delivery using digital channels. |
Equal Digital services are seen as being as important as traditional offline services. |
Insight-driven The provision of online services is based on research and testing. |
Innovative Online services are iterative and integrated. They are delivering previously untapped reach and impact. |
01. Culture
Level 1 | Sceptical Staff are wary of digital and try to avoid it. |
Level 2 | Respectful Staff are happy that specialists are dealing with digital. |
Level 3 | Participative The organisation understands the value of digital and wants to learn more. |
Level 4 | Inclusive Digital is seen as key to success and incorporated into everything. |
Level 5 | Fundamental Digital is the principal way to engage supporters and advance our mission. |
02. Leadership
Level 1 | Minimal There’s no clear digital leadership at any level. |
Level 2 | Restricted The digital lead is confined to a mostly tactical role. |
Level 3 | Supported The digital lead is able to be strategic, when time allows. |
Level 4 | Elevated At least one senior digital lead exists, and digital leadership is actively invested in. |
Level 5 | Intrinsic Digital is an integral part of the overall strategy and digital leadership is present at all levels and departments. |
03. Collaboration
Level 1 | Siloed Teams plan separately and message and resource clashes are discovered at the point of implementation on digital channels. |
Level 2 | Synchronised Teams plan separately and share plans in order to synchronise. Teams rarely significantly change their plans to accommodate other team’s plans. |
Level 3 | Planned Teams make plans together based on their objectives for the year. Teams are responsible for their own audience/product KPIs. |
Level 4 | Integrated There's an ongoing planning organisation-wide process to ensure consistency of messages/products for audiences, across channels. KPIs are shared across teams. |
Level 5 | Audience-first Planning starts with audience insight, in cross-organisation multi-skilled teams to best deliver my organisation’s strategy and objectives. |
04. Budget
Level 1 | Survival The budget only covers the bare essentials, such as website hosting. |
Level 2 | Maintenance The budget supports the current setup but doesn’t allow for improvements. |
Level 3 | Experimenting The budget allows for the testing of new ideas in priority areas. |
Level 4 | Growth The budget supports increasingly digital ways of thinking and doing. |
Level 5 | Sustainable A healthy budget for the ongoing evolution of digital operations increases impact. |
05. Innovation
Level 1 | Deprioritised Innovation is not considered important, or is not happening at all. |
Level 2 | Ad hoc Innovation occasionally happens as part of existing projects. |
Level 3 | Small-scale There is innovative re-imagining of some aspects of products or services. |
Level 4 | Coordinated Joined-up innovation is evolving the organisation. |
Level 5 | Embedded A structured innovation programme is creating transformational change. |
06. Capacity
Level 1 | Responsibility One or more digital staff look after the website and email. They may not have a digital background or skillset. |
Level 2 | Expertise Basic digital functions are covered by people with specialist skills and experience. |
Level 3 | Team There’s a central team of digital specialists, with some digital delivery in other teams. |
Level 4 | Function There’s a senior digital lead and a team, with growing digital opportunities in other teams. |
Level 5 | Capability Senior digital leadership leads strategy across the organisation with effective delivery teams. |
08. Recruitment
Level 1 | Essential There’s a focus on technical skills for the role looking after our digital channels. |
Level 2 | Specialist Specialist digital skills are in a digital team. By chance, not design, other teams may have individuals with digital skills. |
Level 3 | Generalist Broad digital mindsets and behaviours are required for jobs all around the organisation. |
Level 4 | Prevalent Relevant digital skills and behaviours are standardly included in job descriptions. |
Level 5 | Pervasive Recruits at all levels of hierarchy have a strong understanding of the digital mindset and insights. All job descriptions include relevant digital skills. |
08. Learning
Level 1 | Skill-sharing Digital experts teach others on an ad-hoc basis. The training budget is very small. |
Level 2 | Building literacy There’s a small budget for basic digital skills in digital expert roles. |
Level 3 | Centralised There’s training across all teams in my organisation to normalise digital skills. |
Level 4 | Multi-layered Digital upskilling is a priority for all. Teams understand their role in the digital change. |
Level 5 | Cultural Organisation’s L&D people lead on the development of digital skills and behaviours at all levels of my organisation. |
09. Project management
Level 1 | Inconsistent Project management is done differently for different projects. |
Level 2 | Basic Some common project management principles are used. |
Level 3 | Progressing Projects are managed through a structured but often lengthy process. This does not suit every area of activity in an organisation. |
Level 4 | Developing Agile project management principles and practice are used, mostly on digital projects and products. There is a launch, test and improve approach. |
Level 5 | Impactful Agile principles are consistently used in all projects to empower multi-skilled teams, improve efficiency and increase impact. |
10. Technology
Level 1 | Primitive Systems are limited in scope and aren’t integrated. They may be insecure. |
Level 2 | Outdated Systems aren’t keeping up with the needs of the organisation. |
Level 3 | Keeping up Systems are stable and enable basic operations. |
Level 4 | Effective Tools and systems are delivering regular improvements in effectiveness. |
Level 5 | Leading edge Interconnected tools and systems provide a smooth, effective internal and external user experience. |
11. Data
Level 1 | Chaotic Data in the organisation is scattered and online and offline activity data is used in isolation from each other. |
Level 2 | Understood Data is seen as important for the organisation. Quality and use is improving in some areas of work. |
Level 3 | Developing There’s a clear policy for data management. Data is integrated across most areas of work and analysed. |
Level 4 | Literate Quality, integrated data is used across much of the organisation to understand performance of activities. |
Level 5 | Driven Live data is used across the organisation to shape performance, decisions and strategy. |
12. Reporting
Level 1 | Sporadic KPIs exist, but progress is only reported at the senior level. There is not much clarity on how they illustrate progress. |
Level 2 | Tactical Relevant KPIs are set and reported against, but the lessons aren’t always used in planning. |
Level 3 | Aggregated Performance data is collected and joined up, but is hard to access. |
Level 4 | Integrated Holistic performance data is quickly and easily accessible. |
Level 5 | Real-time Holistic performance data is always available and is used in planning and to make decisions. |
13. Insight
Level 1 | Gathering Insights are gathered and used in a silo of a team that commissioned them. |
Level 2 | Understanding Insights from more than one source are combined to build understanding. |
Level 3 | Analysing Knowledge about who people are is combined with behavioural insights. |
Level 4 | Acting on Insights are used to shape planning and delivery. Some products are optimised based on data analysis for better results. |
Level 5 | Learning from All work and strategy are grounded in rich, up-to-date insight distilled from the holistic data pool and optimised to improve results and impact. |
14. Communications
Level 1 | Unspecific Digital is used to mainly broadcast to audiences the priorities of different teams in the organisation. |
Level 2 | Consultative Digital (technology) advice is sought by non-digital staff, when judged it’s needed. |
Level 3 | Inclusive Digital insights are used from the outset in communications and audience journey planning. |
Level 4 | Strategic Communications are designed to be digital by default. Audience journeys are planned by multi-skilled cross-organisation teams. |
Level 5 | Transformational Digital is used to create engagement opportunities which are continuously optimised to achieve best conversion into long term engagement. |
15. Optimisation
Level 1 | Non-existent Organisation evaluates projects at the end. Lessons are not always used for new projects. |
Level 2 | Ad-based Social media ads are optimised by an agency. Some of these insights are used in planning of social media content. |
Level 3 | Journey-based Every bit of an audience journey is optimised - messaging, content, layout - in order to increase conversions. |
Level 4 | Product-based Organisation continuously looks at data in order to optimise every part of a product in order to provide good user experience, simplify and/or automate processes and increase conversions. |
Level 5 | Organisation-based Organisation regularly looks at dashboards in order to measure progress of strategy and tweak/adjust/change on the go in order to improve the outcomes. |
16. Internal systems
Level 1 | Inefficient Some systems have been digitised but we still have inefficient systems as automation has not been utilised. |
Level 2 | Inconsistent Some excellent digital tools are available but their take-up has been patchy due to the lack of staff engagement. |
Level 3 |
Discretional Good digital tools are available, with onboarding and support on request. |
Level 4 | Effective There is an investment in digital tools that improve the working lives of staff who are engaged in the design of technology and processes. |
Level 5 | Efficient A comprehensive suite of connected digital tools, co-designed with affected staff is widely used. Automation/AI significantly reduces repetitive tasks. |
17. Service delivery
Level 1 | Basic Information is shared online. Traditional offline services are signposted from the website. |
Level 2 | Supplementary There is some experimentation with service delivery using digital channels. |
Level 3 | Equal Digital services are seen as being as important as traditional offline services. |
Level 4 | Insight-driven The provision of online services is based on research and testing. |
Level 5 | Innovative Online services are iterative and integrated. They are delivering previously untapped reach and impact. |