STRATEGIC MAPS AND CRITICAL FACTORS FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT MATURITY: A PROPOSAL

Project Management (PM) and Strategic Management (SM) are two subjects of growing importance in the corporate environment which are normally considered in isolation. One way of integrating these two concepts might be via the concept of project management maturity (Westphal et al., 2008). Rabechini and Pessoa (2005) state that to obtain project management maturity, it is necessary to achieve success in a number of critical factors which include organizational culture and structure, as well as sponsorship at both tactical and strategic levels (Silva et al., 2008). Another way of achieving this connection is by using Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as an auxiliary tool to integrate between projects and organizational strategy (Brock et al., 2003). The original developers of the BSC, Kaplan e Norton, subsequently developed the concept of strategy mapping, which they affirm "represents the missing link between the formulation and the execution of the strategy" (Kaplan e Norton, 2004). This paper proposes a strategy map identifying critical factors for attaining project management maturity. To formulate the map, we used a qualitative, exploratory approach oriented by Project Management theory and strategy mapping. We first identified 13 critical factors, then developed a strategy map, which was evaluated by six specialists (three in SM area and three in PM area).The results suggest links between strategic mapping nad critical factors in project management. It also contributes to both areas independently. Specifically, the study identifies critical factors for project management maturity while demonstrating the applicability of strategic mapping techniques to Balanced Scorecard concepts