Maturity Card Game: The Agile Assessment Revolution

Imagine you need to bring your team together to discuss, evaluate, and improve the organizational maturity of your department, so you’ve scheduled a meeting with everyone. Likely, upon seeing the invitation, many members thought this idea was dull and tedious; even you might have found it daunting to deal with such a challenge. But we’re about to introduce you to a practical, fun, and engaging way to do this through the Maturity Card Game.

The Maturity Card Game is a practical tool to discover your company’s maturity, based on the Kanban Maturity Model (KMM). The Kanban Maturity Model was developed through extensive research and analysis of more than 150 companies. The KMM offers a detailed framework to assess and improve the organizational maturity of businesses.

In this article, we will explore the fundamentals of the Kanban Maturity Model, introduce the Maturity Card Game and its rules, and, most importantly, show you how you can play it easily and for free to discover your business’s maturity.

What is the Maturity Card Game?

The Maturity Card Game is a tool that assesses organizational maturity based on the practices of the Kanban Maturity Model. Available in both physical and digital versions, it enables an analysis of an organization’s, department’s, or team’s maturity level. This tool optimizes the traditional assessment and offers practical actions to enhance your company’s organizational maturity.

Because it is dynamic and playful, the game promotes productive interaction among team members, provides a moment of reflection, and results in a strategic action plan to improve the organization’s performance and maturity.

Maturity Card Game and Kanban Maturity Model

The Kanban Maturity Model (KMM) is a framework that guides organizations in implementing and evolving Kanban practices. This model defines seven levels of maturity, each with specific practices, policies, and goals that help organizations progress toward operational excellence. The KMM serves as a guide to assess an organization’s current maturity and chart a clear path for continuous development, making it a flexible and effective tool for tackling the challenges of digital transformation.

The Maturity Card Game was developed based on the KMM and aims to facilitate discussion, evaluation, and prioritization of actions within teams. While the KMM provides a structured roadmap for the evolution of Kanban practices, the Maturity Card Game offers an interactive and collaborative way to engage the team in identifying areas for improvement and setting priorities.

What are the benefits of the Maturity Card Game?

The Maturity Card Game is an interactive tool designed to facilitate the discussion and evaluation of management practices within a team or organization. Using cards that represent different practices and concepts, participants can discuss, evaluate, and prioritize actions that lead to process improvements. This playful and collaborative approach helps identify areas for improvement and align the team around common goals.

Here are the key benefits:

Diagnosis and Evaluation

The Maturity Card Game allows for a detailed assessment of organizational maturity by promoting open discussions about current practices and identifying gaps relative to the KMM.

Team Engagement

Due to its playful nature, the Maturity Card Game engages the team in a light and collaborative manner, increasing commitment and acceptance of the practices discussed.

Action Prioritization

With the Maturity Card Game, the team can prioritize which practices to implement first, based on a collective and consensual evaluation.

Culture of Continuous Improvement

When played regularly, the Maturity Card Game keeps the discussion about practices and improvements active within the organization, aligning with the KMM’s objectives of continuously advancing toward higher maturity levels.

How to play the Maturity Card Game?

To play the Maturity Card Game, we recommend 3 to 8 players. Set the session duration, which can vary between 2 to 4 hours, and determine the context to be analyzed (product, department, team, or the entire company).

Distribute roles among players as follows:

• Response Leader: There should be at least one person responsible for answering questions according to the defined scenario. Responses can be individual or by group consensus.
• Facilitator: The facilitator is responsible for distributing the cards, leading the dynamics, and managing scores. They should be well-versed in the game rules to help others understand the dynamics.
• Observers: In the digital version, there are observers who are participants that can follow the game online without receiving cards but should participate in the discussions. More opinions and perspectives enrich the experience.

Before starting the game, shuffle the cards and deal 7 to each player.

Where to play the Maturity Card Game?

You can play the Maturity Card Game digitally and for free; to play, access the Maturity Card Game website.

In the online version, the facilitator should create the digital room, which requires prior registration. After registering, share the generated password with the other players. Send the meeting link and password to the other players, who do not need to register to participate.

Important Tip

Ensure that all players are connected to the digital room. Each player will have an avatar that will turn red if the connection drops. The facilitator should start the game when everyone is ready.

What are the rules of the Maturity Card Game?

The Maturity Card Game is based on scoring, collaboration, and information sharing. The more interactions and idea exchanges between participants, the richer the game will be.

Here’s how the scoring works:

• Each card has a specific score according to its value: 1 = 1 point, 2 = 2 points, 3 = 3 points, and so on up to 10 = 10 points.
• Face cards have the following scores: J = 12 points, Q = 14 points, K = 17 points, and A = 20 points.
• For each vote received, add 2 points to the card. If there is unanimity, add 3 points.
• For players who purchased the physical version of the game, access the scoring page to not only track the score but also generate a report at the end of the game.

When the time runs out or when there are no more cards in the deck and players’ hands, count the points. The player with the highest score will be the winner.

In the digital version, distribute the cards according to their colors and levels. If necessary, remove the “Objective” bar to view the colors corresponding to each level.

Finally, consult the results spreadsheet to generate a report of prioritized actions based on the stage and relevance. Use this information to implement improvements and advance in maturity level.

What are the maturity levels according to the KMM?

The Kanban Maturity Model was developed based on research and analysis of more than 150 companies effectively using the Kanban method. Through these analyses, patterns and best practices were identified at each maturity stage. The model is structured into seven maturity levels, each representing an evolutionary stage in management practices. Let’s explore each level in more detail:

Level 0 – Unconscious

In this initial stage, recommended practices are adopted unsystematically and occasionally. There is no clear structure for work management, which tends to be disorganized with low visibility of activities in progress. Individuals focus on “completing my tasks,” and management usually relies on people, activities, and time.

Level 1 – Team-Focused

Here, processes are still emerging and often poorly defined, resulting in inconsistent and variable quality deliveries. Understanding the customer and the importance of the work performed is limited, affecting the effectiveness of deliveries.

Level 2 – Customer-Oriented

At this stage, processes, flows, and policies become more consistent. The team better understands activities and the final product but may not fully grasp the reasons behind work requests. The process begins to include metrics and a clearer view of demand relative to the team’s capacity.

Level 3 – Fit for Purpose

With consolidated processes and greater collaboration, this level eliminates the dependence on individual “heroes.” Deliveries become consistent, aligned with the company’s purpose, and customer satisfaction increases. The understanding of purpose, product design, and delivery flow is well-adjusted to customer expectations.

Level 4 – Risk Hedged

The alignment between processes, deliveries, company purpose, and customer expectations is enhanced. Consistency reduces overall stress, allowing focus on issues like sustainable growth and financial resilience in the face of unforeseen circumstances.

Levels 5, 6, and 7

These levels reflect continuous evolution from Level 4, focusing on a mindset of continuous improvement and enhanced feedback practices. Companies begin to excel in their processes and quality of deliveries, especially at Levels 6 and 7, where building authority and market reach becomes a priority, favoring customer value delivery and quick adaptation to changes.

Organizational Maturity Study

Objective conducted a study on organizational maturity using the Maturity Card Game, which leverages six KMM dimensions (Improve and Evolve; Explicit Policies; Flow Management; Feedback Loop; Visualization; WIP Limit) to create a practice map and improve company performance and productivity.

Between 2022 and 2024, the game was applied in 148 companies across health, services, manufacturing, finance, telecommunications, education, and retail sectors, with 46% large companies, 29% medium-sized companies, and 26% small companies.

The main results were:

• Large companies face significant challenges in improving process efficiency and uniformity.
• The health sector had the highest participation in using the Maturity Card, reflecting a strong commitment to process improvement. Finance, Industry, and Telecommunications also showed interest in improving their processes.
• The health sector shows greater maturity diversity, with some companies reaching higher levels (3 and 4). Services and Manufacturing are predominantly in the initial stages, but with visible progress. Education and Retail are mostly in the initial stages, with great improvement opportunities.

Challenges Identified

• WIP Limit: 22% of organizations struggle to limit work in progress, affecting efficiency.
• Explicit Policies: 18% face challenges in making policies clear and consistent.
• Continuous Improvement: 16% encounter difficulties in establishing effective continuous improvement cycles.

To learn more about this study, download the detailed version now.