A correlational study of project management maturity and project managers’ attributes and influence in South Africa

Abstract

The purpose of the study reported in this dissertation was to establish if there is a relationship between project managers’ attributes and their organisations’ project management maturity. To achieve this, the study evaluated the existence of relationships between the project managers’ power, project managers’ technical expertise, and project managers’ project management experience and their organisations’ project management maturity. The study was based on a survey of self-identified project managers in South Africa. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire of 306 respondents from 1500 invitations to members of a project management association. The collected data was edited and descriptively and inferentially analysed using a commercial statistics package. From the descriptive analysis, the study found that South African organisations are responsive to changes in project resources, are benchmarking the capability, are becoming aware of the importance of project management as a strategic enabler and are embracing a project culture within their operations. From the inferential analysis, the study found that project managers’ power and project managers’ technical expertise have a weak have a weak positive correlation with organizational project management maturity The study contributes to knowledge on project management maturity by showing that project managers, particularly the power that they have and their technical expertise, cannot be ignored in initiatives that organisations embark on to improve their project management maturity.