Lessons Learned from the PMMM Research Series
SERIES ARTICLE
By Darcy Prado, PhD
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Brazil
ABSTRACT
This is the third article in the series “Lessons Learned from Maturity Research”. It advances the analysis of the maturity survey database available on our website, as started in the previous article, to explain some additional peculiarities. Now we will focus on the stratification of the data. As we know, project management is practiced in many scenarios, and we will observe in this article that each of them has slightly different performance indicators. In other words, understanding heterogeneity is important. We would like to take this opportunity to alert the reader that, to properly understand this text, it is very important that the reader already has knowledge of the articles published in previous issues of this journal [3,4].
1 – INTRODUCTION – INTEREST IN THE TOPICS OF “MATURITY” AND “PERFORMANCE”
Our online maturity survey has sparked a lot of interest among organizations in Brazil, particularly because it presents the relationship between maturity and performance indicators. Our target audience is very diverse and includes public and private organizations, various project categories, different sizes of organizations, etc. In our survey, we use four performance indicators:
- Success (Total, Partial, Failure)
- Delay
- Cost overruns
- Execution of the planned scope
Whenever possible, our reports present these indicators for each of the 5 maturity levels. Furthermore, the survey allows for several stratifications for reporting purposes, if sample sizes allow for this. The stratifications cover 4 types of organizations, 11 project categories, 28 business lines, 2 types of clients, and various sizes of organizations. All of this would allow users of our website to compare the current situation of the area in which their organization operates with the data produced by the survey that actually related to their scenario. For example, the construction area of a private industrial construction company that serves private clients would like to see the most recent survey report for exactly this scenario.
Unfortunately, this is not always possible for all stratification possibilities. Reason: insufficient sample sizes to produce statistically reliable reports for all stratification possibilities. In some years when we had larger samples, we were able to perform several stratifications and produce several reports which are available on the website. But this was not always the case. For example, in the last year surveyed (2014), this was not possible.
Even so, our analysis of almost 20 years of internet research showed some very interesting data, and some even surprised us, as we had no idea of this when we started this work in 2005. This is what we will continue to show in this article. So, next, we will carry out an analysis of the results of the latest research carried out, as follows:
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Editor’s note: The Project management Maturity series of articles by Prof Darci Prado is based on his extensive research on this topic in Brazil and other countries. Darci is the developer of the Prado Project Management Maturity Model which has been successfully implemented by many organizations in Brazil. More about this model and related research can be found at. https://maturityresearch.com/en/home-en/
How to cite this work: Prado, D. (2025). Heterogeneity Matters, Lessons Learned from the PMMM Research, Series article 3, PM World Journal, Vol. XIV, Issue VI, June. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/pmwj153-Jun2025-Prado-heterogeneity-matters-series-article-3.pdf
About the Author
Darci Prado, PhD
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Brazil
Darci Prado is a consultant and partner of FALCONI in Brazil. He is an engineer, with graduate studies in Economical Engineering at UCMG and PhD in Project Management from UNICAMP, Brazil. He has worked for IBM for 25 years and worked with UFMG Engineering School for 32 years. He holds the IPMA Level B Certification. He was one of the founders of Minas Gerais State and Parana State PMI chapters, and he was a member of the Board Directors of the Minas Gerais State PMI chapter during 1998-2002 and member of the Consulting Board during 2003-2009. He was also the president of IPMA Minas Gerais State chapter during 2006-2008. He is conducting Project Management maturity research in Brazil and Italy. He is author of nine books on project management and is also author of a methodology, a software application, and a maturity model for project management. Darci can be contacted at darciprado@uol.com.br.
To view other works by Dr. Prado, please visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/darci-prado-phd/
