Overview of the Maturity Model

The maturity of citizen development in an organization has numerous implications on how citizen development initiatives should be approached. For example, when an organization is getting started with citizen development through an initial proof-of-concept project, there is no need to install a robust governance and software development life cycle (SDLC) process. Conversely, when citizen development accounts for a large proportion of the application development in the organization, it is critical for the organization to establish governance around these activities and to have a centralized view of the value being delivered for the organization through citizen development.

There are five stages of maturity (Figure 22):

•Discovery: An organization's first experience with citizen development, albeit on a small and discrete scale

•Experimentation: Starts when citizen development has demonstrated value through successful delivery of the initial use cases and the stakeholders involved are looking to replicate and scale in order to build the case for adoption

•Adoption: The necessary steps that an organization takes to formally adopt citizen development into the organization and recognize it as a key enabler for transformation and growth

•Scaling: Processes and structures are in place, allowing citizen development to grow in the organization

•Innovating: An active transformation and innovation is ongoing through citizen development

This is a simple way to show how citizen development matures throughout its life cycle from that initial proof-of-concept project right up to being an integral part of an organization's strategy and transformation agenda.

Introduction to the Stages of the Maturity Model

We will cover the practicalities of each phase of the life cycle later on in this section. Table 20 provides a brief description of what is happening at each life cycle stage.