A few weeks ago a colleague sent me a link to the Localization Maturity Model by GALA, the Globalization & Localization Association. As a lover of anything that has five stages and/or the word "maturity," I was happy to read it, and the aspect I found most compelling was the notion of the pre-stages of maturity, represented in their model by negative numbers:
Source: The Localization Maturity Model
Since then I've been doing a lot of thinking about how this applies to my own maturity model for SharePoint. The folks at GALA got it right - the path to maturity for any competency doesn't start when you self-assess at level 100. It starts long before then and may include some uncomfortable and confusing twists and turns before you arrive at those clearly marked steps upward.
I've got some ideas about what these pre-steps are for SharePoint Maturity, but I'd love to hear from others about their experiences. I'll be polling the attendees and speakers at the upcoming SharePoint Saturday Conference in Washington, DC this weekend, and in the meantime, if you'd like to share some descriptors of pre- or anti-SharePoint-maturity, please leave a comment - and feel free to have fun and be creative!
[Update 8/15/11 - Marc D. Anderson did so much thinking about this subject, it turned into its own blog. Catch his Chasm of Despair post here.]
I'm going to go with:
-3) overwhelmed.
-2) it's google docs! but lumpier.
-1) blindly developing where no man has developed before. with predictably heinous results
Posted by: Claire | August 09, 2011 at 11:20 AM