Yes, I believe project management maturity (both process maturity and people maturity) can significantly increase a project’s chances of success.
But it’s not a magic bullet. Let me offer a few reflections:
How maturity supports project success:
- Better predictability and control
Mature organizations tend to have well-defined planning, monitoring, and risk management processes.
This enables teams to anticipate problems and course-correct earlier.
- Strategic alignment
Process maturity improves how projects align with organizational goals. It ensures that efforts are focused on what truly matters.
- Competence and leadership
Beyond documented processes, it’s critical that people are trained, capable, and empowered. Individual maturity (critical thinking, leadership, adaptability) makes all the difference in complex or volatile environments.
- Culture of learning and improvement
Mature organizations learn from failure, adapt their practices, and create feedback loops that fuel continuous improvement.
Limitations - maturity ≠ automatic success:
- Implementation costs
Developing maturity takes time, investment, and leadership commitment. It may not deliver ROI if applied rigidly to small or low-complexity projects.
- Risk of bureaucracy
Overly rigid processes can slow teams down and reduce autonomy. Balance is key — standardization where it adds value, flexibility where it enables agility.
- Organizational culture matters
If leadership isn’t committed, if communication is weak, or if scope keeps shifting, maturity on paper may have little practical impact.
- Context is everything
Maturity levels need to be adapted to the industry, project type, and organizational size. What works in construction may not work in software, and vice versa.
My view
Maturity helps a lot.
But it must be fit for purpose, not “one-size-fits-all.”
The best approach is to:
- Assess current capabilities (people, processes, tools)
- Define what level of maturity is actually needed (not necessarily Level 5!)
- Prioritize practical maturity: the kind that delivers clarity, consistency, and impact
- Combine process frameworks with strong people culture and adaptive leadership
Maturity, in my view, is not about rigid control.
It’s about creating the conditions for clarity, coherence, and continuous learning.
This regenerative view of maturity is embedded in models like VMCL (Vision, Mission, Capacity, Learning) and Confiança Regenerativa (Regenerative Trust), which connect intention, capacity, and trust in real-world decision-making and team development.
Questions to explore further:
- How do we define success?
Is it just on-time/on-budget, or also value delivered and stakeholder satisfaction?
Which aspect of maturity has the highest impact in your organization - processes, people, or culture?
- Can we evolve maturity incrementally through agile practices, or is a more structured roadmap required?
Thanks again for the thoughtful prompt
Looking forward to reading other perspectives!
It can increase the success rate of the delivery aspects of a project but doesn't necessarily ensure that the project's outcomes will be achieved as those are only partially related to organizational PM maturity. In other words doing the project right is different than doing the right project at the right time in the right context.
Yes, generally, higher project management maturity tends to increase the probability that projects succeed, because it reduces common failure modes and improves predictability. But it’s not a direct assurance.
There’s less confusion, fewer last-minute surprises, and teams can focus on doing the real work instead of putting out fires.
Of course, tools and processes help, but real maturity shows when people take ownership, communicate well, and adapt quickly.
In short, stronger people + clearer processes = better project outcomes.
Yes, absolutely. Higher project management maturity, both at the individual level (skills, mindset) and the organizational level (processes, governance, culture), directly improves success rates.
➜ Mature PMs handle complexity and risks better
➜ Mature processes provide consistency and alignment
➜ Together, they reduce failures from ad-hoc practices and increase the chances of delivering real value.
TL;DR, the right level of maturity is important and beneficial, but getting there is not easy, and not everyone will agree on what the "right" level of maturity should be. Trying to force maturity can actually lead to project failure.
I'm glad I'm not the only one with a nuanced opinion on this subject. Have you ever tried to apply a maturity model? I know, the question is about maturity, not maturity models, but I'm speaking to maturity models because you have to define maturity before you can conclusively say that greater maturity will lead to greater project success.
I worked at a company that was pursuing ITIL maturity. Management killed it as they were starting to work on Level 3 objectives; it was taking longer and costing more than they wanted. I've heard similar stories of companies pursuing CMMI maturity. It wasn't until 2019, when I was evaluating the PMO Value ring and going through their maturity assessment, that I fully realized that the intent of following a maturity model is not to achieve level 5 in all areas (the thought had been in the back of my mind, but it wasn't fully developed). The intent should be to understand where you are, where you want to be, and then develop a plan for how to get there that doesn't interfere with strategic objectives (maturity is an enabler, not the end goal). There's nothing wrong with evaluating the model and deciding you don't want to achieve more than a level 2 or 3 in a given area, or with spreading out incremental improvements over time. A maturity model is basically somebody else's view on how things should be done that may not fully align with your organization. That doesn't mean your organization doesn't need to change or wouldn't benefit from increased maturity, but applying a maturity model for the sake of applying a maturity model has the potential to lead to frustrated stakeholders who expect, but aren't seeing, immediate ROI, and feelings that project management just makes things more difficult and take longer. This could be due to maturity being treated like something you just do, not an organizational change/transformational effort that requires more than project management to make sure it's done effectively.
Greater project management maturity doesn't always lead to greater project success. It's worth pursuing, but the changes involved can be highly disruptive, which can negatively impact your efforts to pursue greater maturity. Saving Changes...
Project Manager| AWR Development (BD) Ltd. Cox's Bazer , Bangladesh
Yes! Mature people + mature processes = stronger projects. But it also depends on the type of organization and, most importantly, its leadership
Golam Rob Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
I fully agree with Kiron Bondale here. But the other thing I like to point out is people maturity (in terms of running a process) and process maturity are two different things. I was trained in maturity models and I applied it from long time ago, that the reason I am writing this. Saving Changes...
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