Towers

This section provides explanation about the Towers in the MINCE Maturity Model.

Towers: overview

Each of the six MINCE Towers represents crucial organizational aspects that correlate to organizational maturity.

Figure 7 – Six MINCE Towers

In order to be able to get a clear look-out, any castle will (or should have) a couple of Towers, allowing for the inhabitants to check which threats or opportunities are approaching. The higher such a Tower, the higher the maturity level is, so consequently the higher the sooner anyone moving towards the castle and its contents will be noticed. A low Tower will be less beneficial in defending the castle's precious contents. A certain number of Towers will be necessary in order to have a proper view over the landscape, into the fields beyond. It should be clear now that the Towers are the main part of the MINCE construction work. There are six of them and each one has a Roman number attached to it:

1. People;
2. Methods & Techniques;
3. Customer;
4. Realization;
5. Knowledge;
6. Supporting Services;

These Towers determine the main aspects of organizations with regard to the maturity level. Each Tower has a connection to the environment via Criteria. The combination of Tower and Criterion reflects a certain level of maturity. So you'll obtain as many maturity levels with each Tower as there are Criteria: In effect there are five maturity levels with each. Each of the Towers is briefly described below.

Tower I: People

People is Tower I in the MINCE model. And this is for a reason. People are the most important asset of an organization. This is certainly the case during periods of change, but probably also in the absence of change. Machines can be altered or replaced without much difficulty. Staff are not as easily adapted or replaced. Managers should not consider machines and people to be interchangeable items. People, from the perspective of MINCE, do not need to be a particular level of type. We are not focusing on the board of directors. Neither are we singularly interested in the staff carrying out project tasks or in people cleaning the place. People, according to MINCE, addresses all people in the organization, from the receptionists, via the secretary, all the way up to the production technicians, the management team and further. When focusing on people, we look towards the Criteria in order to determine the degree to which our people are behaving like leaders (Leadership is a Criterion), dealing with staff matters (Staff is another Criterion), knowing of and contributing to corporate policy (Policy as a Criterion), utilizing the means (the Criterion named Means) available to them and acting according to regulations (the Criterion Instructions), i.e. are they taking steps in terms of getting these instructions known, understood and followed-up down the hiërarchical line?

Tower II: Methods & Techniques

Methods & Techniques are positioned as Tower II in the MINCE model, since even the best qualified people in the world need to have these both available in order to accomplish meaningful results. This is an important maturity indicator. Methods & Techniques have a feeling to them of boredom and dust. This should not be the case, since the topic without much effort can be transformed into a stimulating and fascinating subject that acts as the foundation of your organization. Firstly, Methods & Techniques are a matter of selection. Just pick any documented Method & Technique and you will perform better in comparison to a competitor who does not take such action. Any choice is better than none. If you're smart, you obviously pick your Method & Technique on the basis of well-prepared criteria. The latter approach will of course bring better results. In order to decide, you'll need to have a clear understanding of what a method is, in comparison to a technique. That is addressed as such:

• A method is a described way of dealing with business topics.
  Examples: The method describing project management (e.g. PRINCE2), programme management (e.g. MSP), test management (e.g. TMAP), service management (e.g. ITIL), functional application management (e.g. ASL), software development (e.g. RUP) or quality management (e.g. EFQM).
• A technique is the prepared way by which you bring the method into practice.
  Examples: The particular way you use MS Office products for the inception of your project management documentation. Or a technical programming approach you have selected, that determines how you develop the software products that your organization sells. Or the way in which you collect questionnaire results via a web-based eForm.

The combination of Method & Techniques in fact represents the quality with which your people perform tasks and in that respect should be considered as an indication of the quality level, associated with your organization.

Tower III: Customer

At first glance there seems little you can do about Tower III, your Customer. Is not it a fact that the maturity indicator induced by your customer is out of your influential sphere? To be honost, it is obviously not always easy to change anything about the maturity influence your customer induces. It is however not impossible to influence just that. Why should you accept the laissez-faire attitude of a low level customer? If you go into business with customers that gave accomplished little or no maturity themselves, this will influence your business in a negative way. So perhaps you should try to avoid such customers and instead focus on finding others, with a fair idea about a quality relationship between (service) provider and customer organization. If your organization is aiming to provide quality solutions and/or quality products, you should aim to produce these for the clientèle base able to make proper use of them. You should not avoid injecting quality into your customer base and stimulating them to absorb it. If they make serious attempts to adopt these invitations, both you and your customer will benefit, since quality radiates reliability and durability – both of which are aspects that any organization will want to display. If you succeed into moving up to the level of higher quality organizations, if you are indeed able to improve the quality of your business chain, this will also make it easier for your organization to search for new, high quality customers to add to your business chain.