If AI is the turbocharger, the fundamentals of maturity assessments are the engine. And here’s the thing, most consultants I meet want to skip straight to the tech. But without the foundations in place, you’re just automating noise.

In this chapter, I simplify maturity assessments down to their core components: the frameworks, the scoring logic, the diagnostic flow, the way you separate signal from noise. We’ll walk through why structure matters, why your methodology is only as strong as your data, and why the real craft lies in framing questions that uncover what’s actually going on and not what you think people want to hear.

I’ll share how I’ve built and refined these fundamentals over decades, across manufacturing floors, boardrooms, and M&A war rooms. You’ll see the common mistakes that make assessments stall, and the small shifts that make them land with impact every single time.

By the end, you’ll have the blueprint for a maturity assessment that works on its own before you add the AI layer. And when you do add it, the results are on a different scale entirely.

Next up: Chapter 4, where we start building AI-enhanced maturity assessments, step by step. This is where the fundamentals meet the future and where the real leverage begins.