The question looks simple. To promote an idea of data management (DM) development the following questions about DM maturity are to be answered:
- what is the current level?
- what is the target level?
- what is the benchmark to other peers?
But how practically can you answer these questions?
In searching for the answer, I made a brief analysis of COBIT, TOGAF, and DAMA standards, which can be summarized as the following:
These standards differ by scope of DM components:
- DAMA includes 11 (well known to DM professionals);
- TOGAF intercepts DAMA on Data & Application architecture, Security;
- COBIT pays attention to Information Architecture and Data management (Data Governance, Data Ownership, and Security) as part of IT processes.
- Some of them (TOGAF, DAMA) require maturity assessments, but only COBIT offers a generic maturity model, which is applicable to all IT processes.
So, the preliminary conclusions are:
- There is no standard technique to make such an assessment depending on a company size and other factors (also to be defined);
- All standards are to be adjusted to each particular company needs and capabilities;
- You need to develop for your company DM maturity model as a part of DM standards adjustment and implementation process.
But still, if I urgently need to draw attention of the company management to the subject, what do I do?
Use COBIT maturity model, which proposes 6 levels:
- Non-existent
- Initial/ad-hoc
- Repeatable, but intuitive
- Defined process
- Managed and measurable
- Optimized
- * Use the main DM Governance elements, which can be applied to the rest of DAMA components;
Make the following manual for DM Maturity assessment:

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