University of Melbourne · S1 2026 · FACULTY OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

ISYS90026 · Concepts In Information Systems

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Chapter 6 of 11 · ISYS90026

Business-IT Alignment Maturity

Week 6 moves from how to align IT and business (Chapter 5's Strategic Alignment Model) to how aligned you actually are. Luftman's Strategic Alignment Maturity Model (SAMM) scores an organisation on six criteria — Communications, Value Measurement, Governance, Partnership, Scope & Architecture, and Skills (mnemonic C·V·G·P·S·S) — and places it on a five-level ladder from Initial/Ad Hoc to Optimized. The premise the exam keeps testing is that alignment is an evolutionary journey, not a switch you flip, and that high maturity is what turns IT investment into real business value. The signature Theme 2 move is to read a short case, name the failing criterion, separate the root cause from the evidence, and estimate the maturity level.

In this chapter

What this chapter covers

011. SAMM — Luftman's (2000) Strategic Alignment Maturity Model: score six criteria, then set one overall level
022. Alignment as an evolutionary journey — maturity is climbed a rung at a time and can slip back, never reached in one leap
033. The six criteria (C·V·G·P·S·S) — Communications, Value Measurement, Governance, Partnership, Scope & Architecture, Skills
044. The five levels — 1 Initial/Ad Hoc → 2 Committed → 3 Established/Focused → 4 Improved/Managed → 5 Optimized
055. Value centre vs cost centre — the tell-tale of low vs high maturity (technical metrics vs business outcomes)
066. Root cause vs evidence — the exam move: symptoms are evidence; the single failing criterion is the root cause
077. Criterion assignment — uptime-metric = Value Measurement, budgets-in-silos = Governance, order-taker = Partnership
088. SAMM (six criteria) vs Luftman & Brier's twelve alignment components — different models, common trap

Worked example · free

SAMM diagnosis — name the criterion, split cause from evidence, estimate the level

Q [10 marks]. "Northwind Utilities" (an invented firm) lets its retail division and IT plan technology budgets in completely separate silos; last year three divisions each funded their own overlapping customer-billing system, and the CFO openly treats the IT budget as "a cost line to trim". There are no joint committees that decide IT funding. (a) Which of Luftman's six maturity criteria is the root cause, and which statements are merely evidence? (b) Estimate Northwind's maturity level and justify, and state one improvement step.

+2List the six criteria for the marker: Communications, Value Measurement, Governance, Partnership, Scope & Architecture, Skills (C·V·G·P·S·S).
+3Name the root cause: Governance maturity. Mature Governance means business and IT jointly and strategically plan and prioritise IT spend, treating the budget as a strategic investment; Northwind does the opposite — siloed planning with no joint funding committee.
+3Separate evidence from root cause: the duplicate billing systems, the siloed budgets and the CFO's "cost line to trim" attitude are evidence (symptoms); the underlying failure to govern IT investment jointly is the root cause they all flow from. Do not mislabel this as Partnership — the issue is how spend is decided, not trust in the relationship.
+2Estimate the level and recommend: on the ladder 1 Ad Hoc → 2 Committed → 3 Established → 4 Improved → 5 Optimized, Northwind sits at roughly Level 1–2 because IT is run as a cost centre with no shared, strategic budgeting. To climb, set up a joint business-IT steering committee that prioritises IT spend as a strategic investment portfolio.

Root cause = low Governance maturity (siloed, non-joint IT budgeting that funds duplicate systems and treats IT as a cost to cut); the duplicate systems and CFO attitude are evidence. Northwind is roughly Level 1–2 and must introduce joint, strategic IT investment governance to mature.

Sia tip — When a case is about how IT money is decided — silos, duplicate systems, budget-as-cost — it is Governance, not Partnership. Always list the six criteria, name one root-cause criterion with its definition and a case link, explicitly label the symptoms as evidence, then place the firm on the 1–5 ladder and give one concrete next step. Cite Luftman (2000), not Luftman & Brier (1999).

Glossary

Key terms

SAMM (Strategic Alignment Maturity Model): Luftman's (2000) model for assessing how aligned IT and business are. You score the organisation on six criteria and place it on a five-level maturity ladder, then plan the climb to the next level.
The six maturity criteria (C·V·G·P·S·S): Communications, Competency/Value Measurement, Governance, Partnership, Scope & Architecture, and Skills — the six dimensions on which alignment maturity is scored before an overall level is set.
Value Measurement (criterion): Whether IT can demonstrate its worth in business metrics (revenue, customer growth, ROI) rather than only technical ones (server uptime, tickets closed), including post-project value reviews. Reporting only technical metrics is the classic failure.
Governance (criterion): Whether business and IT jointly and strategically plan and prioritise IT resource allocation, treating the IT budget as a strategic investment rather than a cost centre. Siloed budgeting and duplicate systems signal low Governance maturity.
Partnership (criterion): The depth of trust, shared vision and shared risk/reward between IT and business — whether IT is seen as a strategic co-creator with an executive champion or merely an order-taking vendor.
The five maturity levels: 1 Initial/Ad Hoc (chaotic; IT a cost centre) → 2 Committed (local awareness) → 3 Established/Focused (IT embedded; focused governance) → 4 Improved/Managed (strategic contributor; value centre) → 5 Optimized (co-adaptive, integrated across supply chains).
Value centre vs cost centre: The tell-tale of maturity: low-maturity organisations treat IT as a cost to control (technical metrics), while high-maturity ones manage it as a value centre — a strategic investment measured by business outcomes.
Root cause vs evidence: The SAMM exam discipline: the observable symptoms in a case (uptime boasts, duplicate systems) are evidence, while the single underlying alignment-criterion failure is the root cause they all flow from.

FAQ

Business-IT Alignment Maturity FAQ

What is Luftman's SAMM?

The Strategic Alignment Maturity Model (Luftman 2000) is a diagnostic that scores an organisation on six criteria — Communications, Value Measurement, Governance, Partnership, Scope & Architecture and Skills — and places it on a five-level ladder from Initial/Ad Hoc to Optimized, so you can find the weakest dimension and plan the next step up.

What are the six criteria and how do I remember them?

Communications, Value Measurement, Governance, Partnership, Scope & Architecture, and Skills — remember them as C·V·G·P·S·S. You assess each one, then set a single overall maturity level; the weakest criterion usually drags the whole organisation down.

What are the five maturity levels?

Level 1 Initial/Ad Hoc (chaotic; IT as a cost centre), Level 2 Committed (localised awareness), Level 3 Established/Focused (IT embedded with focused governance), Level 4 Improved/Managed (IT as a strategic contributor and value centre), and Level 5 Optimized (fully co-adaptive and integrated across supply chains). Lock the endpoints: Level 1 = Ad Hoc, Level 5 = Optimized.

How do I tell the criteria apart in a case?

Match the mechanism to the symptom: how IT money is decided (silos, duplicate systems) is Governance; the quality of the relationship and trust is Partnership; mutual understanding of priorities is Communications; what IT reports as success (uptime, tickets) is Value Measurement. Measuring success by uptime is Value Measurement, not Governance.

What is the difference between root cause and evidence?

Evidence is the observable symptoms in the case (a 99.95% uptime boast, an 11-second checkout, three duplicate systems); the root cause is the single underlying alignment-criterion failure that produces them. The exam almost always asks you to separate the two, so label the symptoms as evidence and name one criterion as the cause.

Is this page official or affiliated with the University of Melbourne?

No. This is an independent AskSia study resource for students taking ISYS90026; it is not produced, endorsed by, or affiliated with the University of Melbourne. Always confirm assessment details against the official Canvas subject page and current handbook.

Study strategy

Exam move

Treat SAMM as a diagnostic you run, not a list you recite. Memorise the six criteria as C·V·G·P·S·S and the five levels as a one-way journey (1 Ad Hoc → 5 Optimized) you can climb a rung at a time, and drill the criterion-assignment reflex on one-line symptoms: uptime/tickets = Value Measurement, budgets-in-silos/duplicate systems = Governance, order-taker/no-trust = Partnership, talk-past-each-other = Communications, rigid legacy = Scope & Architecture, fear-of-failure/no-cross-training = Skills. On every case, list the six, name one root-cause criterion with a definition and a case link, explicitly label the other statements as evidence, estimate the level using the cost-centre-vs-value-centre tell, and close with one concrete improvement step. Keep SAMM (Luftman 2000, six criteria) separate from Chapter 5's Strategic Alignment Model and Luftman & Brier's (1999) twelve components, and cite the right author and year — confusing the two models is the most common way to lose easy marks.

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