Best practice guide:
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How to use the Accessibility
Maturity Model (AMM)
About these guides
We understand that while there can be common aspects, organisations work in different ways and
what works for one, might not fit so well with another. These guides are written as an example of
what best practice might look like in your organisation, but it may be that you have to adjust what is
recommended to accommodate your particular circumstances.
Similarly the guides do not include detailed technical information as this would tie them to a specific
technology or set of circumstances. Instead the guides convey important principals and approaches
that can be applied in any industry and using any technology. Where appropriate the guides
reference other sites and resources which contain more technical detail at the time of publication/last
review.
Introduction
Understanding how well your organisation has embedded its understanding of
accessibility issues in areas such as IT governance and procurement is an
important step in progressing your organisations accessibility maturity.
To support this need, the Technology Taskforce has designed the Accessibility Maturity Model
(AMM), a self-assessment tool which enables organisations to drill down to get more information on
different levels of IT accessibility. The tool is designed to be informative and action orientatedallowing you to see your organisations current IT accessibility performance and support you in
making decisions about future focus areas.
This document aims to support organisations using the AMM by providing case studies of why and
how Technology Taskforce members use the tool, providing some suggestions for how the model
can be used in your organisation as well as some hints and tips to completing your own assessment.
It should be noted that the testimonials in this guide relate to a previous version of the Accessibility
Maturity Model which was structured differently, however, the learnings from these testimonials will
be reflective of the new model which was released in April 2016. If you have any feedback or a
testimonial about the new model then please let us know and we’ll include it in the next version of this
guide
Authors:
David Caldwell, Barclays
Contributors:
Paul Smyth, Barclays, Neil Milliken, Atos, Sean Smith OBE, HMRC, Chris Felton,
DWP, Vera Mogensen, GSK
Editors:
Lucy Ruck and Bela Gor
Best practice guide: How to use the AMM | Version 1.2 | October 2016
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Completing the tool did provide
us with an opportunity to boost
awareness about accessibility
whilst collating the results.
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Insights from Technology Taskforce members
Barclays Bank
Barclays uses the AMM as it provides a structured and systematic way of assessing their progress
and performance in terms of accessibility over time. The organisation has benefited from the broad
nature of the tool allowing them to have oversight across a range of areas impacted by IT
accessibility. The tool has allowed Barclays to demonstrate improvements that have been made and
to articulate to senior stakeholders where effort and resources need to be placed to make further
progression.
Paul Smyth, Head of IT Accessibility at Barclays, told us that they use the tool in a number of
different ways:
“We’ve used the AMM in different ways over recent years depending on what we’re trying to achieve.
When I set up the IT Accessibility team in 2012 it was an extremely useful tool that allowed us to do a
current state assessment and to build an initial action plan. Over time we’ve used different
approaches to completing the assessment. These tended to be either comprehensive deep dives
where we had to provide some level of education about the tool and then a structure survey to collate
responses from areas such as Sourcing, Change teams and HR. Completing the tool in this way took
time but it did provide us with an opportunity to boost awareness about accessibility whilst collating
the results. We now periodically update scores based on a panel of SME (subject matter experts)
rating which takes much less time and generates similar results but takes around an hour to
complete.”
The approach taken by Barclays shows that you can change the way you use the AMM depending
on when and why you’re completing it. In addition to using the AMM, Barclays also monitor their
progress using the Accessible Technology Charter and use a RAG (red, amber, green) based system
to health check each charter point on a regular basis.
ATOS
The AMM provides ATOS with an opportunity to have a conversation with senior leaders to measure
the progress of the accessibility of our systems, procedures and processes. The team at ATOS ask
country level Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to complete a self-assessment of the model which
then gives the team a baseline to begin discussions with Global IT and the Business. The task takes
a maximum of 2 hours to complete in this manner.
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At HMRC they have a committee
made up of representatives
from IT, HR and end users.
Enterprise Rent-a-car
As a global organisation with a strong set of values, Enterprise Rent-A-Car believe it’s important for
them to understand their current accessibility position and use this to define a set of strategies to
improve key areas in the most efficient way possible. The AMM provided the team with a fantastic
starting point and whilst early in their accessibility, they have the right support of the organisation to
deliver improvement to make a real difference.
The team at Enterprise Rent-A-Car used the AMM to create a baseline to measure the impact of
improvements that their strategy will bring about. The team plan to use the AMM on an annual basis
and are looking to extend the usage of the model globally as they increase in competence and
confidence in using the model.
GSK (GlaxoSmithKline)
GSK have used the AMM to plan and benchmark progress for programme of improvements,
including a one-stop-shop website for accessibility, and enhancements to key IT services. The model
acts as a baseline for developing an accessibility strategy and ensures that activities are prioritised,
allowing GSK to make improvements based on a selective, iterative and user driven approach. GSK
believe that the AMM will help them verify and measure success against the Accessible Technology
Charter.
Lloyds Banking Group
Lloyds Banking Group uses the AMM on a formal basis during their biennial Disability Standard
benchmarking exercises to great success. More recently, they have been looking at how the AMM
can be used as a prompt for setting annual priorities and as a way of guiding their ongoing efforts.
HMRC
HMRC are one of the AMM’s forerunners and helped to create the original model. They use the
model as a tool to influence stakeholders within the organisation and to highlight issues to ensure a
resolution is sought and delivered in a timely manner. The tool helps HMRC to recognise both good
practice and areas of weakness as well as helping them to assess progress over a number of years.
At HMRC they have a committee made up of representatives from IT, HR and end users who meet to
discuss the overall accessibility strategy and recent progress. They review the AMM twice a year and
normally take around half an hour to complete the assessment through a conversation rather than
marking individually. The committee recognise that AMM won’t in itself change anything but does
allow them to prioritise what needs to happen next.
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The team can pragmatically assess
the current level of accessibility
and quickly come up with a score
and areas to focus on.
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Ways of completing the AMM
The approach to completing the AMM will be as individual to each organisation as the scores for
AMM will be. However, we there are a number of commonly used methods which are explained
below.
 Formal review and stakeholder engagement- this is often the way most organisations start
out with the AMM as it’s commonly used as a starting point for organisations wanting to
improve their IT accessibility. This approach normally involves identifying champions across
the organisation and educating them about the accessibility and the AMM. The champions
then consider a particular element of the AMM e.g. Procurement and Supplier contracts and
using their understanding of this area, rate the level of accessibility maturity of this area. Their
scores are then fed back into whoever is co-ordinating the completion of the AMM.
For larger organisations it’s likely that there may be more than 1 champion for each of the
checkpoints e.g. if technology is split by business area or geography then a champion might be
required for each of these instances of technology. Where this occurs then either the average
score can be used or each area has its own instance of AMM. The advantage of this process is
that you get a wide spread of opinions which is likely to make the results more accurate however,
this approach can be time consuming and take several weeks to complete.
 Committee review – this approach follows a similar approach to the formal review but instead
of carrying out an assessment at an individual level, the assessment is completed as a
committee through the use of a conversation. The committee is made up of representatives
from each impacted area e.g. IT, Governance, Sourcing, Design and HR and everyone
contributes to identifying a score for each of the checkpoint areas. The initial setting up of this
committee may take some time but once established, the review of the AMM is likely to take
anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on the maturity and knowledge of the group.
The advantage is that you will end up with an unbiased view of your status, although it can be
time consuming when you first start doing this.
Subject Matter Expert (SME) review- the SME review approach is most commonly seen in
organisations who have dedicated IT accessibility teams which understand the full picture and have
line of sight of the different areas involved in the AMM. The team can pragmatically assess the
current level of accessibility and quickly come up with a score and areas to focus on. Depending on
the maturity of the team and level of understanding this activity can take up to 2 hours. If you opt to
use this approach then it’s suggested that you find a way of allowing teams or SMEs to complete the
score in private to ensure that ‘group bias’ doesn’t take over. The risk with this approach is that the
team may have their own agenda or bias, and may steer the results to use in their favour. However,
they are probably best placed within their organisation to know the issues that are affecting their
disabled users and have a wider view on the areas that will need attention
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There are a number of
resources available online to
help you complete the AMM.
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Resources
There are a number of resources available to help you complete the Accessibility Maturity Model
(AMM):
 http://technologytaskforce.org/accessible-technology-charter/accessibility-maturity-model/ –
the site has an interactive self-assessment tool which guides you though the completion of an
assessment. You can also submit your assessment using the tool and this will then be sent to
you as a pdf report. The site also provides information, advice and support around achieving
IT Accessibility as well as resources relating to the Accessible Technology Charter
www.technologytaskforce.org
Technology Taskforce is committed to ensuring that all its products and services are as accessible as
possible to everyone, including disabled people. If you wish to discuss anything with regard to
accessibility of this document please contact us, via email: [email protected]
or phone: (0)20-7403-3020
Registered charity no: 1018463.
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Registered in England under Company No. 2603700
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