www.healthyboardroom.com/five-stages-of-the-board-management-maturity-model/

How a board functions how it organizes meetings, looks at issues, prepares reports and manages data changes over time. Aboards are usually unaware of this, but a well-designed maturity framework can help them understand and chart their improvement.

While an annual review brings an element of objectivity to evaluate governance practices, an assessment of the maturity of the board offers a more in-depth and complete analysis. These assessments give boards a roadmap that can help them achieve the next level of governance maturity.

The majority of boards start at the lowest point of maturity in management. They are apathetic boards that recognize their responsibilities as well as public relations, but see governance as an imposition on their ‘proper’ jobs of managing the company. Moving to the next level – level Two is the initial step to move boards away from a view of governance as an administrative burden and toward developing home competence in strategic thinking.

Maturity models typically comprise of three to five levels which examine the quality of governance techniques within a business. They evaluate areas such as board management, risk supervision and stakeholder engagement. The first level is usually defined through impromptu processes without formal guidelines or alignment, while the third and second levels are more clearly defined methodologies. These methods can be based on interviews, questionnaires or benchmarking. Interviews can show a team’s dedication and enthusiasm for particular procedures, while surveys conducted by an independent third party are more systematic and offer an accurate and balanced view of the board’s current state of maturity.