As part of its Information Management Assessment offering, The National Archives has developed the M365 KIM Maturity Assessment Tool to help organisations subject to the Public Records Act evaluate the effectiveness of their information and records management practices within M365 environments.
Background
The tool is based on the M365 Information Governance Maturity Model, maintained by the Information and Records Management Society (IRMS) through an international working group of national archives and records management specialists. This group provides oversight by continuously reviewing emerging M365 features, determining when updates are required, and conducting benchmarking exercises with the wider records management community. This ensures that best practice definitions reflect current consensus. These benchmarking exercises give the tool collective legitimacy, grounded in what multiple Information Governance experts consider best practice.
These benchmarking exercises give the tool collective legitimacy, grounded in what multiple Information Governance experts consider best practice. It is important to note, however, that alternative approaches may also meet KIM requirements within individual organisations.
This version of the Assessment Tool represents the second iteration, built on the latest update of the Information Governance Maturity Model for Microsoft 365. In addition to updated content, the new tool also offers enhanced interactive functionality, including improved data visualisation and action planning features.
Information for using the tool
Download the M365 KIM Maturity Assessment Tool
In the Organisation tab of the workbook, please tell us who you are, what organisation you are from and when you are carrying out the Maturity Assessment.
The Maturity Assessment question set is split into themes over six separate tabs. These are:
- Governance
- Provisioning
- Permissions
- Retention
- Disposition Review
- Artificial Intelligence
Note: There are also two tabs dedicated to scoring and action planning (see below)
The questions in each tab can be found in column C.
Each question has several maturity statements. These statements correspond to one of three maturity levels, organised into a red, amber, green (R.A.G.) framework listed in column I. These are:
- Level 1 – Inadequate (Red)
- Level 2 – Adequate (Amber)
- Level 3 – Optimal (Green)
Note: Not every question has an adequate or optimal maturity level. This is due to the benchmarking exercise concluding that there is currently no adequate or optimal approach. It may also be the case that, in some circumstances, an approach that has been benchmarked as inadequate or adequate may, in fact, be considered optimal because of the specific circumstances of the organisation completing the Maturity Assessment.
How to use the M365 Maturity Assessment
To complete the Maturity Assessment, follow the below instructions:
- Read the question column (column C) and then the maturity statement column (column F).
- In the current practice column (column J), select ‘Yes’ from the drop-down menu to indicate which maturity statement corresponds to your current practice.
- If you have an improvement goal, select ‘Yes’ from the drop-down menu in column K.
- Select an improvement timescale from the dropdown in column L.
The drop-down options are:
- No Action
- Next Year
- Next Two Years
- Long Term
- No Action
Note: Where ‘Next Year’ or ‘Next Two Years’ is selected, you should make a note in column M detailing your planned actions over those time periods. These entries will be automatically added to the table in the ‘Consolidated Responses’ tab. This table should be used for managing and reviewing the progress in the future.
Overall scores for each of the six themes can be found in the summary tab. This tab includes data visualisations, showing users where their strengths and weaknesses are in a simplified format. It also includes a table for ‘specific areas for consideration’ which highlights questions that have achieved an inadequate response but have not had an improvement timescale assigned to it. It is recommended that the user return to questions highlighted in this table and add timescales to them to help track improvements in the future.
Custom Options
The assessment allows the user to detail custom processes that are not currently reflected by default. To enter a custom option, follow the below instructions.
Note: Wherever possible, please choose the predefined maturity statements that match, or are reasonably close to your organisation’s approach. For minor differences, you may want to record additional detail in the comments section. Reserving the custom option for unique approaches will help the analysis of common practices, shared challenges, and new approaches that can inform the design of the next iteration of the framework.
- Navigate to the last two rows of each question and overwrite the text in column F.
- Select the maturity level where the custom option is believed to sit.
- Indicate whether the custom option is ‘current practice’ or an ‘improvement goal’ by using the drop-down menu in columns J or K.
- Choose an improvement timescale in column L.
- Detail any actions that will be taken to ensure improvements are made in column M.
The Maturity Assessment will score custom options in the same manner as the default options. As such, it is important to ensure that the chosen maturity levels are as accurate as possible.
The National Archives may pass on custom options to the IRMS Working Group, which may inform future iterations of the Information Governance Maturity Model for Microsoft 365, helping to ensure an accurate reflection of evolving information governance practices in Microsoft 365. This data will be anonymised to ensure it cannot be linked to any organisation.
Data use
Data collected through The National Archives’ M365 KIM Maturity Assessment Tool will be used by The National Archives to help support public sector bodies improve GKIM practices and compliance. Anonymised data may be used to analyse the information management landscape across government and to improve our guidance and engagement offer. Anonymised data may also be also shared across government and used in publicly available reports to highlight information management maturity across government.
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