Appendix: Capability Areas and Maturity

This Management Plan provides common business processes and tools to enable stakeholder collaboration while implementing the National Strategy, and as such will be integrated into the future ISE performance scenarios. The table below shows the spectrum of maturity levels by capability area.

ISE Capability Areas and Maturity Spectrum

CAPABILITY	Maturity Stage 1	Maturity Stage 2	Maturity Stage 3
COMMUNITY	Awareness	Involvement	Integration
PROCESS	Exploration	Adoption	Harmonization and Compliance
TECHNOLOGY	Awareness	Exploration	Integration

Questions in the annual ISE Performance Assessment Questionnaires (PAQ) align to each maturity stage. We use industry and government best practices to guide the assessment efforts, including GAO’s framework for assessing and improving Enterprise Architecture, and for assessing and improving the process maturity of Information Technology Investment Management.

The following list is a sampling of notional performance assessment questions that can be used by ISE Stakeholders to self-assess the level of maturity of applying the tools in this Management Plan.

Assessing the Maturity of ISE Management Capabilities

Governance and Policy	Maturity Stage 1	Maturity Stage 2	Maturity Stage 3
COMMUNITY	Is your agency aware of the authorities and duties of the ISA IPC, Federal CIO Council, the Senior Information Sharing and Safeguarding Steering Committee, and other interagency bodies that serve your community and has it developed a plan to establish relationships between them and its governance body(ies)?	Is your agency involved in the ISE governance bodies that foster information sharing and safeguarding policies and processes promoted by the ISA IPC, Federal CIO Council, Senior Information Sharing and Safeguarding Steering Committee, and other bodies that serve your community?	Are your agency’s information sharing and safeguarding policies, processes, and investments aligned and, where desirable, integrated with those of other ISE Stakeholders and does your agency benchmark its policies and business processes against other “best-in-class” ISE organizations?
PROCESS	Has your agency identified gaps in existing information sharing and safeguarding policy based upon a review and analysis of IRTPA Section 1016; Executive Orders 13388, 13587, 13636; NSISS Goals and Priority Objectives; GAO-13-283 High Risk Series; and any other statutory requirements, executive orders, or reports pertinent to your organization?	Has your agency created, or is your agency involved in one or more governance bodies with defined membership, guiding policies, operations, roles, responsibilities, and authorities for closing gaps in information sharing and safeguarding policy?	Does/do your agency’s information sharing and safeguarding governance body(ies) implement, enforce, and ensure harmonization and compliance with policies through actions and budget processes; and by publishing policy guidance and tracking short- and long-term implications?

Budget and Performance	Maturity Stage 1	Maturity Stage 2	Maturity Stage 3
COMMUNITY	Is your agency aware of the annual ISE Planning Cycle and has it developed a plan to participate in the development and, where required, respond to the requirements of the annual ISE Programmatic Guidance; ISE Implementation Guidance; ISE Performance Assessment, and ISE Annual Report to the Congress?	Is your agency involved in developing ISE performance measures that are used to assess strategic progress and inform action guidance and budgetary resource allocation to support the priority objectives of the NSISS and best practices of other ISE Stakeholders?	Are your agency’s information sharing and safeguarding investments aligned and, where desirable, integrated with those of other ISE Stakeholders, and does your agency benchmark its investment approach against other "best-in-class" ISE organizations?
PROCESS	Are your agency and its employees aware of the ISE and are information sharing and collaboration criteria a component of performance appraisals?	Is your agency involved in leveraging cross agency guidance and policy (e.g., the Federal Resource Allocation Criteria Policy) in its budget and performance management processes to inform the allocation and development of personnel, as well as the delivery of other resources (i.e., training deliveries, exercises, etc.) to support interagency efforts?	Has your agency implemented an integrated performance management capability that is aligned with the ISE Performance Framework, using maturity-defined performance measures, to monitor the performance of responsible information sharing initiatives, and identifies the technologies, processes, and necessary integration with the wider ISE community required to mature those initiatives to the point where they achieve the goals of the NSISS?

Interoperability and Standards	Maturity Stage 1	Maturity Stage 2	Maturity Stage 3
COMMUNITY	Is your agency aware of and does it engage with industry Standards Development Organizations to further voluntary consensus standards?	Does your agency’s pursuit of technical solutions involve the use of the I2F’s Common Profile Framework to search for solutions to determine what technical solutions are immediately available for its business problems and which consensus-based standards to incorporate into acquisitions and grants?	Are your agency’s corporate and subordinate Enterprise Architectures integrated with those of other ISE Stakeholders and does your agency benchmark its EA management processes against other “best-in-class” ISE organizations?
PROCESS	Does your agency have defined processes that allow coordination among operational elements to enable discovery and access to data by internal partners and systems?	Has your agency developed and adopted initial versions of corporate “as-is” and “to-be” Enterprise Architecture that describe the enterprise in terms of performance, business, data, services, technology, and security; and are architecture products being developed that comply with the I2F?	Do your agency’s segment and/or federated architectures exist and are they horizontally and vertically integrated within your organization, extend to align with external ISE partner architectures, and are subject to independent assessment?
TECHNOLOGY	Is there a general awareness and appreciation for interoperability and are technology solutions and standards for interoperability a consideration in your agency’s enterprise architecture development process?	Do your agency’s Enterprise Architecture planning and implementation activities examine, leverage and comply with the I2F, in particular the ISE Standards and Specifications Framework and the Common Profile Framework?	Does your agency’s EA management program integrate feedback from interagency information sharing programs and to drive its continuous technology improvement efforts?

Communications and Partnerships	Maturity Stage 1	Maturity Stage 2	Maturity Stage 3
COMMUNITY	Is your agency aware of information sharing and safeguarding cultural barriers and does your agency have proactive policies to address information sharing and safeguarding cultural barriers across various levels of government, to include federal, State, Local, Tribal or Territorial (SLTT), foreign governments, or the private sector, where appropriate?	Is your agency involved with writing guest blogs for ISE.gov, team on social media initiatives, co-host events, and co-author positions papers?	Are continuous improvement efforts around information sharing programs in your organization integrating the results of external assessments?

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