In other words, it’s been useful — if something of a hidden gem.

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Here at the Real Story Group we have also used it with our customers. As an example, see the picture above that shows how we applied it to help track the progress of a client over the course of a year.

We found that this type of visualization is a great way to quickly spot which areas need maximum attention and  you can then easily prioritize your efforts.

Do you have any experiences with the model to share? We’d love to know your story and/or any feedback. Some anecdotal feedback we have received has been quite amazing, with some of the world’s largest public organizations making use of it. And that is the whole point of us releasing it under community commons:  You can adapt it and adopt it, you can do what you will.

As my colleague, Jarrod mentioned in his post, we are working presently to update the model, incorporating community feedback. Truth be told we are rather overdue here, but it a voluntary effort and we have had other fish to fry, such as launching the Real Story Group!

Going forward, we also plan to add some tool-kits to the model. The tool-kits will include questionnaires and templates that provide you with a starting point to translate the model theory into practice. But we welcome your participation to make this a truly community driven initiative. So, watch this space — and let us know your experiences with the ECM3 Maturity Model.

For the purposes of this model, we focus on the commonly understood scope of ECM as concerning principally document and records management, along with associated services and processes like imaging, workflow, and archiving, among others.  The model does not directly concern itself with Web Content Management (WCM) and related, publishing-oriented disciplines, although some of the concepts below apply to those programs as well.  Similarly, the model does not address data-oriented information management, such as Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing.

In theory, much in this document could pertain to cognate disciplines in the information management universe, but at that point, we thought it would get too abstract and lose its practicality.  (Erik Hartman, one of the participants in this effort, is working on a broader “Information Management Framework.”)  If the past eight years — since the term ECM came into vogue — have taught us anything, it is that enterprise document management and web publishing are two very different (albeit related) practices.  At some point, it might be worth putting together a WCM Maturity Model.  And as you might know, there are already several different BPM maturity models.

But, first things first.  Let’s tackle what is already an enormous problem set, in ECM.

You can learn more about this effort here.

And download the latest PDF version of the model here.

Find out how to participate here.