A Collaborative Network Maturity Model

Over the last year months a group of cluster facilitators and network coaches in Northern Ireland, including myself, have been working under the auspices of the Cluster Facilitators Forum, to try and develop a non-proprietary open model to guide how collaboration can develop between businesses through clusters and networks.


The ambition is partly inspired by the hugely influential CMM framework for software capability originally developed by the Software Engineering Institute at CMU.

Below is a diagram which summarises the current state of the CFF collaborative network maturity model:

Like all models this one needs to be viewed in the light of Einstein's famous quote:

"All models are wrong but some are useful"

The model is intended to help place a network or cluster on the spectrum of collaboration and to assist in identification of priorities and supporting interventions.

Of course it is an over-simplification and should not be taken to imply that real networks develop in such tidy and linear stages!