Innovation capability maturity assessment
Your innovation capabilities measured, benchmarked and translated into a roadmap.
10 themes, a 5-level scale. And the action that moves each level to the next.
The framework’s 10 themes, already written from L1 to L5. One company, one business unit, or 300 at once.
Innovation capability maturity assessment
10 themes, 5-level scale.
Nordhavn Industries
53 / 100
They measure their maturity with Datamensio
An example
This could be your situation.
Take one company as an example: three sites, three spreadsheets, no shared answer.
Nobody can consolidate.
Nordhavn Industries, 2,400 people in Hamburg, Lyon and Porto. A client asks where the group stands. Each site answers in its own spreadsheet, with its own scales.
Three weeks, a single base.
One Innovation capability maturity framework, drawing on ISO 56002 principles and a five-level CMMI-style scale assessment launched across all three sites at once, from the managers’ interview notes. The framework was already written, its 10 themes and levels L1 to L5 too.
Two costs avoided before being committed.
A score of 53 out of 100, with the gap concentrated on three themes. The AI companion spotted that two actions duplicated those of another audit. The committee report took one sentence to request.
What it saved them
- 3sites measured on the same base, instead of three questionnaires to reconcile
- 2duplicate actions caught before the spend
- 1committee report, with no manual rework
These figures are an example. They could be yours.
The standard imposes processes. Datamensio says where you stand.
01
The framework is already written
Themes, questions and levels L1 to L5, all written. You do not start from an empty spreadsheet.
02
The score lands the same day
Online, by self-assessment link or in interview. Theme by theme, comparable over time.
03
The gap becomes a costed plan
Every step up carries its action. The AI prioritises on expected effect, not on the order of the standard.
04
Progress can be demonstrated
Campaign after campaign, against your target and against your own past. That is what your board asks for.
The maturity scale
One level, the next, and the action that links the two.
This mechanism (a level, a higher level, and the action that connects the two) is what turns a finding into a trajectory.
Are the criteria for stopping an experiment defined and applied?
- N1
No stop criteria are defined. Experiments fade out when budget or attention move elsewhere, without a formal decision.
- N2
A few teams define success criteria at launch, but they are not revisited at review and stopping remains an opportunistic decision.
- N3
Every experiment starts with written continue and stop criteria, reviewed by the portfolio committee at a set deadline. Stop decisions are made and recorded.
- N4
Stop decisions are systematic, backed by test data, and the freed-up resources are reallocated to other hypotheses in the portfolio.
- N5
The criteria themselves are revised based on lessons learned, including from discontinued projects, with documented tracking of revisions and their effects on the portfolio.
Action to move from level 2 to level 3
Make it mandatory, in the launch document for any experiment, to state a quantified success criterion and a decision date, then add these two points to the standing agenda of the next portfolio committee.
« With Datamensio, we meet our objectives far more efficiently. The ERDF inspection services and our supervising ministry particularly appreciated an approach that gives them reliable data. »
Director, CCI 94CCI Île-de-France
« We believe this is the most suitable solution to scale our transformation project and measure impact according to our needs. »
Maja SucekChief Operating Officer, Interreg Danube
Rarely on its own
Frameworks combine. Put several together to cover your business, or have the AI write yours.
Take your first measurement
What this framework covers
An innovation capability framework does not describe projects, it describes durable abilities. It covers innovation strategy and its link to business strategy, scanning and opportunity detection, idea generation and selection, portfolio funding and governance, experimentation, scaling up, the skills mobilised, external partnerships and value measurement. Each capability is assessed against observable practices: who decides, on what criteria, how often, and with what evidence.
In practice, innovation is hard to steer because it is easier to narrate than to measure. The questions that keep coming up are concrete. How many ideas that entered the pipeline last year were explicitly stopped, and by whom? Who decides to kill a project, and on what written criterion? What happens to validated prototypes once the seed budget is spent? Without answers, the organisation confuses activity with capability: plenty of workshops, few handovers into operations.
One common misunderstanding is worth clearing up: innovation is neither confined to a lab nor to a dedicated department. Organisations that make progress are those where business units carry a share of the experiments, where funding follows milestones rather than an annual budget, and where stopping a project is a documented decision rather than a silent abandonment. The rise of generative AI has also shifted the centre of gravity: the constraint is no longer producing ideas, it is selection, production deployment and usage measurement.
The maturity assessment does not ask whether something is compliant. It is not about whether a practice exists, but about what level of mastery it has reached and what specific action moves it up a level. A capability can be present in a few teams without being repeatable, tooled without being governed, governed without being improved. The five-level scale makes these differences visible, and the gap against the target set by leadership becomes a costed action plan, not just a finding.
Within Datamensio, this framework is ready to use and remains yours. The AI adjusts the themes, rephrases the questions and refines the levels to match your internal vocabulary, or builds a variant from your own documents: innovation charter, portfolio committee minutes, existing selection grid.
Reference standard: Innovation capability maturity framework, drawing on ISO 56002 principles and a five-level CMMI-style scale
The themes assessed
Innovation strategy and ambition
Existence of written innovation priorities, link with business strategy, time horizons targeted, trade-off between incremental improvement and breakthrough, executive commitment.
Governance and portfolio
Decision-making body, selection and stop criteria, review cadence, resource allocation across horizons, traceability of decisions.
Scanning and opportunity detection
Sources used, technology and competitive scanning, listening to customers and employees, turning a signal into a testable hypothesis.
Idea generation and qualification
Submission channels, upstream qualification, formalisation of value hypotheses, documented conversion rate between pipeline stages.
Experimentation and prototyping
Methods used, access to data and test environments, seed budgets, success criteria defined before launch, decisions to continue or stop.
Scaling up and industrialisation
Handover to the business, identified operational sponsor, integration into the information system, change management, transition into run and associated budget.
Skills and culture
Dedicated roles, upskilling, time allocated to teams, recognition of contributions, handling of discontinued projects.
Ecosystem and partnerships
Relationships with startups, labs and universities, contractual frameworks, intellectual property, procurement adapted to small structures, customer co-development.
Funding and business models
Funding methods, milestone-based funding, support schemes used, evaluation of expected return, trade-off between opportunity cost and commitment.
Value measurement and improvement
Indicators tracked, usage measurement after production deployment, formalised lessons learned, revision of selection criteria, comparison over time and across entities.
A short version of the framework is available for the online self-assessment.
Frequently asked questions
Does this assessment lead to certification?
No. Innovation capabilities are not subject to any certification body. The assessment measures a maturity level, identifies the gap against the target and produces an action plan. It is a transformation steering tool, not an exam.
How does this differ from an audit?
An audit checks whether a mechanism is in place and concludes with a gap. The maturity assessment places each practice on a progressive scale and indicates the action that moves it up a level. The outcome is a trajectory, not a verdict.
How long does the assessment take?
The short version can be completed in a single working session. The full version, run collaboratively with several contributors, generally takes one to two weeks, most of the time being spent gathering input from project leads and the portfolio committee.
Can the framework be adapted to our organisation?
Yes. You can amend the questions, levels and themes, or start from your own documents: the AI then builds a variant in your own vocabulary. The framework belongs to you, including its successive versions.
Who should answer the questions?
The questions concern governance practices, not technical topics. Innovation leadership, business unit heads and business sponsors cover most of it. Collaborative mode allows each theme to be assigned to the person who knows it best.
How can several business units be compared?
The same framework is rolled out to each entity and scores are compared theme by theme. The cross-entity roadmap consolidates several assessments, and the AI groups common actions to avoid funding the same initiative three times over.
What is the link with ISO 56002?
ISO 56002 provides guidelines for an innovation management system. This framework takes up its structuring principles and translates them into observable capabilities. A capability assessment forms a reusable foundation should you later decide to build a full management system.
Where is the data hosted?
In France, with OVH, backed up at Scaleway. No transfer outside the European Union. The AI models used can be selected, including from European providers.