A broader approach to organisational project management maturity assessment

Around the new millennium, organisational project management maturity was a frequently occurring topic both in international conferences and professional journals. Many of the maturity models were published during this period. The response from professionals was largely positive, although there was also criticism in the literature. Many organisations, at the same time, have made investments in applying maturity models with little return in improved success rate achieved on their projects. Currently, this topic also attracts more attention coupled with challenging criticism. Central to this criticism are the inherent mechanistic approach and the subsequent narrow focus of the maturity models. The primary aim of this paper is to introduce a broader approach to project management maturity assessment, deduced from project management literature, which might address the criticism regarding the existing models, while it has the potential for developing more appropriate maturity models.