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Standard : Technical excellence is made visible and valued

Purpose and Strategic Importance

This standard ensures technical excellence is recognised, shared, and celebrated—strengthening quality, innovation, and team pride. By making excellence visible, we fuel continuous learning, collaboration, and higher standards.

Aligned to our "Engineering Excellence First" and "Foster Craftsmanship & Mastery" policies, this standard drives a culture that rewards diligence and craftsmanship. Without it, key achievements go unnoticed, and motivation to raise the bar wanes.

Strategic Impact

  • Drives a culture of pride, ownership, and continuous learning
  • Improves team morale and strengthens cross-team trust
  • Surfaces practices that can be reused or scaled across teams
  • Helps retain talent by recognising skill and contribution
  • Reinforces organisational confidence in engineering capability

Risks of Not Having This Standard

  • Excellent work goes unrecognised or unrepeated
  • Teams lack shared understanding of what good looks like
  • Motivation to improve dwindles over time
  • Risk of quality and resilience slipping unnoticed
  • Lost opportunities for learning and cross-team alignment

CMMI Maturity Model

Level 1 – Initial

Category Description
People & Culture Excellence is seen as individual or incidental.
Recognition is rare or informal.
Process & Governance No deliberate effort to capture or share
examples of excellent technical work.
Technology & Tools No mechanism or platform for surfacing
technical craftsmanship.
Measurement & Metrics Excellence is not defined, tracked,
or connected to engineering outcomes.

Level 2 – Managed

Category Description
People & Culture Some teams share and recognise excellence,
but it remains local or ad hoc.
Process & Governance Recognition happens occasionally through reviews
or retrospectives.
Technology & Tools Teams may post examples or demos
in chat or team pages.
Measurement & Metrics Anecdotal feedback or informal tracking
of technical wins.

Level 3 – Defined

Category Description
People & Culture Excellence is defined and celebrated.
Craft is part of team identity.
Process & Governance Regular ceremonies or forums surface
examples of high-quality work.
Technology & Tools Portals or dashboards highlight reusable
patterns, designs, or fixes.
Measurement & Metrics Evidence of excellence is documented and
reviewed as part of team learning.

Level 4 – Quantitatively Managed

Category Description
People & Culture Teams seek excellence deliberately and
reflect on what it looks like.
Process & Governance Excellence recognition is tied to feedback loops
in OKRs, career development, or reviews.
Technology & Tools Examples of excellence are tagged, tracked,
and made discoverable across teams.
Measurement & Metrics Impact of excellent work is tracked against
outcomes like flow, quality, and adoption.

Level 5 – Optimising

Category Description
People & Culture Culture of excellence is embedded.
Mentorship and pride are driven by it.
Process & Governance Excellence influences hiring, investment,
and internal positioning.
Technology & Tools Advanced discovery, search, and social
validation of excellent patterns and practices.
Measurement & Metrics Longitudinal impact of excellence is measured
and used to guide learning and improvement.

Key Measures

  • % of teams actively surfacing examples of technical excellence
  • Visibility and reuse of high-quality patterns, tools, or solutions
  • Employee engagement or recognition metrics tied to craft
  • Number of shared learning moments tied to excellence
  • Measurable improvement in delivery, quality, or flow linked to exemplary practices
Associated Policies
  • Engineering Excellence First
  • Foster Craftsmanship & Mastery
Associated Practices
  • Architecture Decision Forums
  • Mob Programming
  • Feature Toggles (Flags)
  • Alert Fatigue Management

Technical debt is like junk food - easy now, painful later.

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