Maturity Assessment Workshop — Facilitator Agenda

Duration: Half-day (3 hours core) + optional afternoon extension (2 hours) Participants: See participant guide below Output: Completed current state profile, gap analysis table, agreed next steps

Before the Workshop

Facilitator Preparation

Brief the network engineering lead in advance — the goal is honest assessment, not a showcase
Confirm participants from each stakeholder group (see below)
Share the maturity level overview with participants 48 hours before the session
Prepare a pre-read: one paragraph describing why the assessment is being run and what it will produce
Print or share the assessment questionnaire so groups can work simultaneously
Book a room that supports breakout groups (or configure virtual breakout rooms)

Participant Checklist

Role	Why Essential
Network engineering lead	Technical capability owner
1–2 network engineers (operational, not just senior)	Day-to-day reality check
Network operations representative	Where processes actually break
Application / platform team representative	Consumer experience
Security or compliance representative	Control and audit perspective
Change management representative	Process perspective
Senior IT leader (CTO, VP Infrastructure, or equivalent)	Strategic context and sponsorship

Note: Aim for 8–12 participants. Fewer than 6 risks missing important perspectives. More than 15 makes facilitation difficult.

Agenda

Opening (20 minutes)

Facilitator actions:

Welcome and introductions (keep brief)
Explain the purpose: “We are here to build a shared, honest view of where we are today — not to grade the network team, but to understand what is holding the organisation back and what needs to change first.”
Clarify what the output will be and how it will be used
Set ground rules: evidence-based scoring, no blame, sceptics welcome

Key message to open with:

“The most valuable thing this session can produce is a view that everyone in this room agrees is accurate — including the parts we’d rather not acknowledge. A scorecard that flatters the team is useless. An honest assessment is the foundation for everything that follows.”

Business Outcomes (30 minutes)

Purpose: Establish the business context before any technical scoring.

Facilitator prompts:

“What does the business need from the network that it cannot reliably get today?”
“Where does the network’s current capability constrain business agility?”
“What would a significantly better network operation enable — for trading, for clients, for compliance?”

Capture output against four outcome categories:

Outcome Category	Business Need (fill in)	Current Gap (fill in)
Reliability & Resilience
Speed & Agility
Cost Efficiency
Risk & Compliance

Maturity Level Overview (30 minutes)

Purpose: Ensure all participants have a shared understanding of what each level means before scoring begins. Do not score during this segment.

Facilitator approach:

Walk through Levels 1–5 using the descriptions from Chapter 3
For each level, give a concrete example from the organisation’s own context where possible
Invite questions — the goal is shared vocabulary, not a lecture

Break (15 minutes)

Working Group Assessment (70 minutes)

Split into two or three groups. Each group works through a set of dimensions using the Assessment Questionnaire.

Suggested split:

Group	Dimensions
Group A	Change Execution, Knowledge & Documentation, Consistency & Repeatability
Group B	Speed & Lead Time, Testing & Validation, Compliance & Audit
Group C (if available)	Consumer Experience + cross-cutting observations

Group task:

Work through each question in the questionnaire
Agree on a maturity level for each dimension (use evidence, not aspiration)
Note the 1–2 most important gaps in that dimension
Nominate a spokesperson for the readout

Group Readout and Discussion (40 minutes)

Format: Each group presents their scores and key gaps. Whole group discusses and agrees.

Facilitator focus:

Surface disagreements — they are data points, not problems to resolve quickly
Note where the consumer/application team view differs from the engineering view
Probe any score above Level 2 with: “What evidence supports that? Is it consistent across the team, or does it depend on specific individuals?”
Record the agreed score for each dimension

Output of this session: A completed dimension-level scoring table.

Wrap-Up and Next Steps (15 minutes)

Summarise agreed scores across all dimensions
Identify the top 2–3 gaps with the highest business impact
Confirm who will produce the formal assessment output documents (profile, gap analysis, executive summary)
Confirm the timeline for sharing output with senior leadership
Confirm the link to the transformation roadmap process

Optional Afternoon Extension (2 hours)

If time permits and participants are willing, use the afternoon to begin the gap analysis and prioritisation.

Afternoon agenda:

Time	Activity
00:00	Gap analysis: for each dimension, what is the single most important thing preventing progress?
00:45	Prioritisation: given the business outcomes agreed this morning, which gaps matter most?
01:30	Draft next steps: 3–5 initiatives to carry into the transformation roadmap

After the Workshop

Within 48 hours:

Circulate draft current state profile for review and agreement
Produce gap analysis table
Draft executive summary

Within one week:

Share final assessment documents with all participants
Present executive summary to senior leadership
Schedule the transformation roadmap session (Chapter 4)

Network Automation Handbook — Patrick Lau
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.
You are free to use and adapt this material within your organisation for internal purposes. Republishing, selling, or distributing this content (in whole or in part) as a book, course, or other commercial product is not permitted without explicit permission.