The Experience Architecture Maturity Model

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{
  "title": "The Experience Architecture Maturity Model",
  "slug": "maturity-model",
  "objectNumber": 11,
  "version": "1.0",
  "status": "published",
  "source": "Internal research — EXA Agentic Workflow, Step 2: Enterprise Implementation Playbook (v1.0, 2026-08-07), §1.1",
  "summary": "The four-stage self-diagnostic that locates an organization's current governance state and names its next move — Ungoverned, Constrained, Instrumented, Compounding. Each stage carries its own mechanism (why organizations end up there), observable symptoms (what you'd actually see), and the specific next move that advances it. A structured companion to The EXA Lexicon's Maturity Model term (Standard object 1), whose worked example carries the narrative walkthrough this table doesn't repeat.",
  "lastUpdated": "2026-08-17",
  "changelog": [
    {
      "date": "2026-08-17",
      "version": "1.0",
      "note": "Published. Status/version flip only — no content changes in this entry, matching Career Ladder's and the EEA Rubric's own draft-to-published precedent. The object's content (the four stages, the intro cross-link to the Lexicon, and both provenance notes in this file's own header comment) is unchanged from its last authoring pass; this is the object's first published release."
    },
    {
      "date": "2026-08-16",
      "version": "0.1",
      "note": "Initial authoring, staged as draft per every prior object's own practice of author review before a page goes live. The four stages are adapted, not invented — sourced from EXA_AgenticWorkflow_Step2_ImplementationPlaybook_v1.0.md §1.1, an internal research document, not a published article, so `source` cites that document honestly and no `sourceArticleUrl` is set. Adaptation was light: internal citation markers and internal section cross-references were stripped; the source table's own wording otherwise stands, since it was already close to publication register. Cross-linked to the Lexicon's existing Maturity Model term in both directions — this object's intro paragraph links back to the Lexicon entry, and the Lexicon's own workedExample gained one added sentence pointing forward to this object (additive-only, no Lexicon version bump, same commit). Not yet published: pending author review of this object's own editorial framing, matching Career Ladder and EEA Rubric's own draft-then-publish precedent."
    }
  ],
  "type": "reference",
  "tagline": "The axis is governance of what you build against — not velocity of what you build.",
  "maturityModel": {
    "stages": [
      {
        "title": "1 · Ungoverned",
        "mechanism": "A static design system governs exactly the states the original team knew about on the day they built it. Everything after that is unnamed, forked, or a production incident waiting to be filed.",
        "symptoms": "Multiple systems \"loosely orbiting\" in one design org; the governance process is a chat channel nobody reads; teams detach components to hit deadlines; nobody can say how many forks exist.",
        "nextMove": "Run a State Inventory on the three highest-consequence surfaces before the next agentic increment. Do not attempt the portfolio."
      },
      {
        "title": "2 · Constrained",
        "mechanism": "A constitution exists and rework drops measurably — but with no function defending it, drift starts the day after it's committed.",
        "symptoms": "An Agentic Constitution is committed to a repo; rework is visibly down; nobody owns amendments; the author is the only person who knows why a rule exists. This is the most common condition an early-adopting enterprise actually occupies: centralized override telemetry hasn't been stood up yet, so there's no mechanism to detect drift or catch the structural signal of three squads independently hitting the same gap.",
        "nextMove": "Stand up the Logic-Review Gate at the Definition of Ready, and name the ratifying function. Constrained is not the finish it feels like."
      },
      {
        "title": "3 · Instrumented",
        "mechanism": "Deviations are caught before merge and governance is finally measurable — real discipline, but still reactive until the loop closes itself.",
        "symptoms": "The gate is running; deviations caught upstream; a scorecard exists; the architect still hunts for gaps manually.",
        "nextMove": "Close the Continuous Learning Loop — centralized override telemetry against versioned constraint IDs, feeding the Ratifier's queue on trigger, not on schedule."
      },
      {
        "title": "4 · Compounding",
        "mechanism": "The specification improves with every deployment, without anyone hunting for gaps — the architecture compounds correctness on its own.",
        "symptoms": "Every regulatory change is amended into the constitution before it becomes the next Dark State; specification precision improves per sprint without a manual discovery push.",
        "nextMove": "Sustain. The risk at this stage is decommissioning the function because it has made its own value invisible."
      }
    ]
  }
}