Leaders should first map current tools, processes, and governance across each organisation in the ICS, then compare those findings against a shared maturity model. That gives a realistic baseline for planning investment, closing gaps, and deciding where collaboration can be scaled safely. Without that assessment, teams risk imposing a uniform approach that ignores local variation, existing strengths, and resource constraints.
What maturity assessment should ICS leaders complete first?
Leaders should start by establishing a shared view of how each organisation actually manages digital identity today, including tools, operating processes, ownership, assurance, and exception handling. That baseline matters because standardisation only works when you know which practices are already strong, which are inconsistent, and which gaps would create risk if they were rolled out unchanged.
The practical test is not whether every organisation uses the same technology stack, but whether each one can support a common access model with reliable identity proofing, authentication, role assignment, lifecycle controls, and oversight. A maturity assessment helps separate what can be aligned quickly from what needs remediation or interim controls first.
For identity governance structure and capability assessment, Identity Security Maturity Model gives a useful baseline for comparing organisations against the same maturity dimensions. Leaders who need a broader operating model can also use IAM and IGA Basics to anchor what should be measured across authentication, authorization, provisioning, and access review.
How do you compare local variation without losing standardisation goals?
ICS leaders should compare organisations on capabilities, not on slogans or procurement labels. Two trusts may both claim “single sign-on” or “role-based access control”, yet one may have strong joiner-mover-leaver controls and the other may rely on manual tickets, inherited access, and inconsistent reviews. The maturity baseline should expose those differences clearly enough to support phased convergence.
The most useful comparison looks at the whole access lifecycle: how identities are created, how access is granted, how exceptions are approved, how credentials are governed, how leavers are removed, and how ownership is assigned. That approach avoids the common mistake of treating standardisation as a technology decision when the real constraint is usually operating model maturity.
If the gap analysis is meant to support a long-term roadmap, NHI Governance Maturity Model is useful for understanding how governance, lifecycle, and monitoring mature together. For a more implementation-oriented view of identity operating structure, Identity Security Programme Guide helps translate findings into programme ownership and sequencing.
What should the standardisation decision be based on?
Standardisation should follow maturity, not precede it. Where the baseline is uneven, the right outcome is often a common target model with different migration paths, rather than a forced one-size-fits-all rollout. That protects the ICS from locking in weak practices simply because they are easier to align operationally.
Leaders should decide which identity controls must be common across all organisations, which can remain locally adapted for a period, and which require a shared service before convergence is realistic. In practice, the best candidates for standardisation are controls that affect trust, safety, and auditability first, then user experience and efficiency second.
For external alignment on digital identity assurance and interoperability, eIDAS 2.0, EU Digital Identity Framework is a strong reference point for shared identity assurance thinking. If the question is about workforce access control and operational safeguards, CIS Controls v8 and NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 Security and Privacy Controls both support the access control, account management, and audit discipline that standardisation must preserve.
Risk and Threat Considerations
Standardising access too early can hard-code local weaknesses into a shared model and make them harder to unwind later. In an ICS context, that can create inconsistent assurance, overprivileged access, weak joiner-mover-leaver handling, and poor visibility across organisations that do not yet share the same control maturity.
Failure mechanism: A common access pattern is introduced before baseline assessment, so organisations with weaker lifecycle, governance, or credential controls inherit the same model without the operational maturity to run it safely.
Impact: The ICS may end up with a uniform but fragile control plane, where access decisions are harder to audit, exceptions are normalised, and one weak organisation increases the attack surface for others.
Standards & Framework Alignment
This section maps relevant standards and security frameworks to the operational risks and controls described in this guidance.
NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 and CIS Controls v8 set the governance and control requirements practitioners need to meet.
| Framework | Control / Reference | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 | IA-2 — Identification and Authentication (Organizational Users) | ICS access standardisation depends on consistent user authentication across organisations. |
| AC-2 — Account Management | The question centers on lifecycle governance and access control across organisations. | |
| AC-6 — Least Privilege | Comparing maturity must reveal whether shared access would amplify overprivilege. | |
| Recommendation — Standardise user authentication requirements before expanding shared access. Align account lifecycle ownership and review practices before unifying access paths. Use least-privilege baselines to constrain any common access model. | ||
| CIS Controls v8 | CIS-5 — Account Management | Account governance is central to assessing whether access can be standardised safely. |
| CIS-6 — Access Control Management | The question is about unifying access across organisations with different maturity levels. | |
| Recommendation — Inventory and control accounts before harmonising access processes. Define consistent access control rules and exception handling across the ICS. | ||
Practitioner Guidance
What to prioritise: Start with identity inventory, access governance, and lifecycle control, because those are the capabilities most likely to determine whether shared access can be made safe across multiple organisations.
What to verify: Check that each organisation can evidence who owns identity decisions, how access is reviewed, how exceptions are approved, and how quickly access is removed when people change role or leave.
What good looks like: A mature ICS baseline shows comparable control outcomes across sites, even if the tooling differs, and gives leaders a clear view of where convergence is realistic now versus where remediation must come first.
Practitioner takeaway: The right standard is not “same access everywhere”, it is “same level of control assurance everywhere before common access is expanded.”
Related resources from NHI Mgmt Group
- How should organisations govern identity when digital access and physical access are split across different systems?
- How should organisations verify signer identity before allowing eSignature access in digital workflows?
- Should organisations prioritise cloud identity governance before expanding privileged access controls across applications?
- How should healthcare organisations implement digital identity changes when NHS structures are reorganised across multiple care systems?
Deepen Your Knowledge
Reviewed and updated by the NHIMG editorial team on September 27, 2026.
NHI Mgmt Group — the #1 independent authority on Non-Human Identity, IAM, and Agentic AI security. nhimg.org
