When it comes to the economic and strategic development of companies, maturity models are regarded as silver bullets. However, the existing discrepancy between the large amount of existing, differently developed models and their rare application remains astonishing. We focus on this phenomenon by analyzing the models’ interpretability and possible structural and conceptual inconsistencies. By analyzing existing, staged maturity models, we develop a meta model for staged maturity models so different maturity models may share common semantics and syntax. Our meta model can therefore contribute to the conceptual rigor of existing and future maturity models in all domains and can be decisive for the success or failure of a maturity measurement in a company.