Organizational culture is defined more or less as environment of interaction between different people –

rules, norms, leadership, structures, routines that “guide and constrain behavior” (Schein 2004, p. 1).
Hofstede described culture as “software of the mind” – “patterns of thinking, feeling and acting mental
programs” (2005, p. 3). Organizational culture provides “internal” and “external integration” helping
employees to deal with each other and the organization – with the external environment (Daft 2006, p.
424). Daft mentioned that organizations seriously face culture when they try to implement new strategies or
programs that interfere with their basic norms and values (2006, p. 423). Organizational culture types and
dimensions were thoroughly discussed in the works of Hofstede, Deal and Kennedy, Handy, Schein,
Carmazzi (Organizational culture 2009).
Schein defined organizational culture as follows: “culture is a way in which a group of people solves
problems and reconciles dilemmas” (cited in Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner 1998, p.6). By Trompenaars
and Hampden-Turner “culture comes in layers, like an onion” and cultural “norms and beliefs sink down into
semi-awareness” (1998, p.6). The core of the onion is unquestioned reality, what is taken for granted
(1998, p.7).
Johnson and Scholes proposed a structured model for description of organizational culture that gave a
possibility to explore it from different perspectives, so that ways to effectively influence it can be developed
(Johnson & Scholes 1992, cited in The Cultural Web 2010).
Picture 1. The Cultural Web (Johnson & Scholes 1992, cited in The Cultural Web 2010).
The six elements presented on the picture above (Picture 1) provide grounds for influencing the cultural
paradigm.
“The six elements are:
1. Stories – The past events and people talked about inside and outside the company. Who and what the
company chooses to immortalize says a great deal about what it values, and perceives as great behavior.
2 Rituals and Routines – The daily behavior and actions of people that signal acceptable .behavior. This
determines what is expected to happen in given situations, and what is valued by management.
3. Symbols – The visual representations of the company including logos, how plush the offices are, and the
formal or informal dress codes.
4. Organizational Structure – This includes both the structure defined by the organization chart, and the
unwritten lines of power and influence that indicate whose contributions are most valued.
5. Control Systems – The ways that the organization is controlled. These include financial systems, quality
systems, and rewards (including the way they are measured and distributed within the organization.)
6. Power Structures – The pockets of real power in the company. This may involve one or two key senior
executives, a whole group of executives, or even a department. The key is that these people have the
greatest amount of influence on decisions, operations, and strategic direction.” (Johnson & Scholes 1992,
cited in The Cultural Web 2010)
Asking questions to yourself, the employees, company partners and customers about the above six
elements of the Paradigm helps to build a complete picture of the current organizational structure (Johnson
& Scholes 1992, cited in The Cultural Web 2010). Further on this picture is used in order to organize change
management initiative, correcting the strategic direction of the organization. Change management tools
were also described in detail by Johnson and Scholes (Johnson & Scholes 1999, p.2).
Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner examine culture within three categories and seven dimensions (1998,
pp.8-10).
1. Relationships with people
o Universalism versus particularism
o Individualism versus communitarianism
o Neutral versus emotional
o Specific versus diffuse
o Achievement versus ascription
2. Attitudes to time
o Attitudes to time
3. Attitudes to the environment
o Attitudes to the environment
The four types of organizational culture can be described as follows (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner 1998,
p.158).
1. The family
2. The Eiffel Tower
3. The guided missile
4. The incubator
These four cultures are best understood on the Picture 2 below (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner 1998,
p.159).
Picture 2. Four types of organizational culture (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner 1998, p.159).
“Three aspects of organizational structure are especially important in determining corporate culture
(Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner 1998, p.157).
1. The general relationship between employees and their organization.
2. The vertical or hierarchical system of authority defining superiors and subordinates.
3. The general views of employees about the organization’s destiny, purpose and goals and their places in
this.”
The four culture types appear on a kind of cultural “plane” based on egalitarian – hierarchical and person –
task oppositions. Family culture represents close “family” relationships between employees, but it is also
highly hierarchical, where power is accumulated in hands of “fathers” (managers or owners). A lot of
information is taken for granted and “father” “elders” always dominate the opinion. The Eiffel tower culture
is impersonal. It is much about clear roles, rules and bureaucracy. It can be compared with military
organization. The guided missile culture is also impersonal and task oriented like the Eiffel tower. But it is
egalitarian at the same time, which means that roles do not mean much. People change roles and do
whatever and how they like in order to reach the goal. Means are less important. So, this culture tends
to motivation and enthusiasm. The incubator culture is “self-fulfillment” and “self-expression”. It frees
employees from routine and aims on creativity at work. Emotions and spontaneous ideas are norms for such
a culture. The incubator is a personal and egalitarian culture that focuses on innovation (Trompenaars &
Hampden-Turner 1998, p.158-177).
Harrison and Handy (cited in Andersen, 2001, p.2) developed a quite similar to Trompenaars & Hampden-
Turner typology of cultures: power, role, task, person. Power culture can be closely compared to the Family,
Role culture to the Eiffel tower, Task culture – to the Guided missile and Person culture – to the Incubator
(Andersen, 2001, p.2).
The plane of organizational culture is also presented in a work of William Schneider (cited in Suda, 2007,
p.4). His plane is based on axes of oppositions actuality – possibility (what content organization prefers) and
personal – impersonal (process of making decisions by an organization), which results in four core culture
types: cultivation, competence, control and collaboration.
These four core cultures by Schneider are not too far from Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner and Harrison
and Handy models described above: Control – Eiffel tower Role, Competence – Guided missile Task,
Cultivation – Incubator Person, Collaboration – Family Power. Though being characterized by open and
direct communications Collaboration culture differs clearly from Family and Power culture models, which
have strong vertical power axis supporting “fathers” or “elders” (Suda, 2007, p.6).
The models by Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner and Harrison and Handy overlap with the Culture Paradigm
by Johnson and Scholes on the elements of Control Systems, Organizational and Power structures, which
makes possible to use both models for triangulation purposes. But such elements as Stories, Rituals and
routines and Symbols remain unique and can be figured out only with the use of the Paradigm model (The
cultural web 2010). Still these elements can play its role in project management. As an example, Craig gives
a recommendation “Ritualize your job life” (2005). Craig mentions that rituals should be followed by the
project manager rather than fought against. The idea by Craig refers to the nature of the project manager’s
job, which supposed leadership. But to lead means to understand people’s mind and emotions, while usage
of established rituals provide such tools (Craig 2005).
Though organizational culture got a lot of attention in management and academic literature, Burchell and
Gilden noticed (Burchell & Gilden 2008, p.1052) that project management literature paid little attention to
cross-cultural aspects. There is also no consensus yet about project management culture (PMC) definition
and assessment tools (Du Plessis, Hoole 2006, p.44). Project management is considered mostly processes
rather than people oriented, so that cultural issues and social activities necessary for successful projects
implementation are ignored (Burchell & Gilden 2008, p.1053). Moreover authors of an article in PM Network
postulated that “project management methodologies neutralize cultural differences and promotes one
standard everyone can model” (No boarders 2005, p.35).
Du Plessis & Hoole proposed the following dimensions for project management culture assessment: project
process, people in project, project systems and structure, project environment. The authors based their
concept on a basic definition of organizational culture, proposed by Deal and Kennedy: “the way we do
things around here” (Du Plessis, Hoole 2006, p.44).
Burchell and Gilden discussed an issue of interaction between western project managers and their Asian
project team. In their work they chose a cultural model proposed by Kets and Vries (Kets & Vries, cited in
Burchell & Gilden 2008, p.1055) that consisted of 9 dimensions and 18 continua: environment, action
orientation, emotion, language, space, relationships, power, thinking, and time. The highest gaps in cultural
dimensions between western project managers and their Asian team members were associated with power,
time, emotion, and thinking (Burchell & Gilden 2008, p.1062). The authors concluded that the “Wheel of
cultures” model by Kets and Vries could be used for further cross-cultural studies in project management
(Burchell & Gilden 2008, p.1063).
PM methodology implementation is tightly connected to project management maturity (PMM) – a measure
for companies’ status and progress in project management implementation. It was proposed by Harold
Kerzner (2001) and gained substantial interest, so that more 35 PMM assessment models were created
(Warrilow 2009). Increase in PMM is claimed to “establish sustainable PMC” (Advancing Project Management
Maturity Results in Improved Organizational Performance 2006).
Project management maturity models are instruments to appraise ability of organizations to successfully
manage projects (Harrison, M et al. 2003, p.1). There are six levels of maturity: Level 0 – No process, Level
1 – Awareness process, Level 2 – Repeatable process, Level 3 – Defined process, Level 4 – Managed
process, Level 5 – Optimized process (Warrilow 2009), (OGC 2008). Though PMMM gives a useful
quantitative tool, it should not supersede behavioral component of PM implementation, which is usually done
by senior managers (Kerzner 2004, p.367). Project management maturity is also sometimes confused with
project management culture. Scott (2009, p. 9) writes that “OPM3®[1] is a foil for clarifying what the
Project Management culture is and how this culture can contribute to the business bottomline”. At the same
time, PM maturity is more about processes rather than culture.
There is also another example of substitution project culture by project processes. Palmer et al. (2002)
described establishing of project culture by modeling good project practices including such standards as
project initiation, definition, analysis of issues, etc… At the same time, even though this approach
corresponds to such representations of culture as regulations, norms and structures, this doesn’t correspond
to wider definition of culture by Hofstede – “patterns of thinking, feeling and acting mental programs”
(Hofstede 2005, p.3).
Considering influence of cross-cultural specific behavior on projects realization, Gregory, Prifling and Beck
discussed emergence of “negotiated culture” that “can be defined as the sum of compromises and
innovations that are negotiated around those differences in behaviors and expectations that are problematic
in a given cross-cultural setting” (2008, p.224). In short, this means formation of a subculture within a
group of natives and foreigners, which gives them a possibility to communicate effectively. The authors refer
to a concept of cultural intelligence or CQ (Gregory, Prifling & Beck 2008, p.225) that describes “person’s
capability to adapt effectively to new cultural contexts” (Earley, cited in Gregory, Prifling & Beck 2008,
p.225). Or by another definition CQ is “a capability to interact effectively with others from different cultural
backgrounds, or the outcome of these interactions” (Ang & Van Dyne 2008, p.109).
The cultural intelligence model consists of three dimensions: cognitive, motivational and behavioral. The first
dimension illustrates “person’s understanding of culture-specific behavior” and includes learning of the
foreign culture principles. The second one represents motivation factors and attitude of individuals towards
cross-cultural interaction. It can be also presented as curiosity towards a new culture. The behavioral
dimension defines behavioral patterns adopted by an individual in order to effectively participate in cross-
cultural communications (Gregory, Prifling & Beck 2008, p.226). Cultural intelligence can be measured with
the use of Cultural intelligence scale developed by Cultural Intelligence Center (Cultural Intelligence Center
2005). Although the concept of cultural intelligence was developed and used for study of cross-cultural
interactions, it seems logical that it can be used to study project management culture, which can be
considered “foreign” in this context. So, that “project culture intelligence” model is introduced.
Project culture intelligence should be distinguished from Project Intelligence, which is understood as project
analysis using Business Intelligence techniques. Special software is developed for Project intelligence
purposes (Ou 2007, p.267). For example, such software provides tools for tracking bug fixing, feature
requests, provision of project status, etc…
So far, the author was unable to find any mentions of Project cultural intelligence (PCQ) in the literature.
This means that the term is first time introduced in the current study.
Intelligence is a complex term covering a set of mind’s abilities and skills like learning, abstract thought,
communication and understanding people, managing body muscles, comprehending ideas… There are
several definitions of Intelligence. One of them is the following:
“A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve
problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not
merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and
deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings — “catching on”, “making sense” of things, or
“figuring out” what to do.” (Mainstream Science on Intelligence 1994, cited in Wikipedia 2010)
Mike Fleetham (2006, p.16) quotes a range of definitions of Intelligence given by scientists, advisors, writers
and psychologists, all different from each other. Among these definitions one state that “Intelligence is what
intelligence tests test” (Fleetham 2006, p.17), showing how narrow understanding of this phenomenon can
be.
Howard Gardner in his work “Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences” (1983, cited in Wikipedia
2010 a) proposed a so called Multiple Intelligence theory. This theory claims that there are several types of
intelligence covering different types of human mind abilities. These intelligences are: logical mathematical,
verbal linguistic, visual spatial, musical rhythmic, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist.
Besides, existential intelligence was added by Gardner later on (Fleetham 2006, pp.25-32).
Along with the “classical” intelligences a number of other types developed during the last decades – social,
cultural, emotional intelligences. Earley and Ang (2003, p.xii) clarify that these are about understanding
interpersonal interactions.
“Cultural intelligence, cultural quotient or CQ, is a theory within management and organizational psychology,
… measuring an individual’s ability to engage successfully in any environment or social setting.” (Wikipedia
2010 b). Taking this as a basis one could define Project Culture Intelligence as “a theory measuring an
individual’s ability to engage successfully in any project environment or setting”.
Project management maturity models
Maturity models are tools describing organization’s effectiveness at performing certain tasks, particularly at
the Software industry (Crawford 2002, p.1).
The widely used Project management maturity models are – Project management maturity model introduces
by OGC, which assesses processes derived from PRINCE2 methodology (OGC 2008, p.129) and Project
management maturity model, which assesses knowledge areas obtained from PMBOK Guide (Crawford
2002, p.4). The maturity concept is used not only for project management assessment, but also broadened
to program and portfolio areas in the multiple standards set by OGC (2010 b).
The level of maturity of processes or knowledge areas may be graded with the use of Software Engineering
Institute’s 5 levels of maturity scale (Crawford 2002, p.4) or four stages of Process improvement –
“standardizing, measuring, controlling, continuously improving” (Frahrenkrog et al. n.d., p.6).
In its Project management maturity models description (P3M3 Maturity Models n.d., p.2) OGC notes that
organizations can bring poor and perfect results even having low level of Project management maturity. But
in such a case they are highly dependent on certain people or groups that realize these projects. Increase in
maturity level is a way to mitigate project risks and make project success a routine rather than luck.
The OGC’s Project management maturity model (PjM3) is built upon seven process perspectives taken from
PRINCE2 methodology.
- Management Control – assesses how well the organization maintains control of its projects.
- Benefits Management – assesses how well the organization defines, tracks and ensures that investment
leads to improvements in performance.
- Financial Management – assesses how well the organization manages and controls the investment through
budgetary control.
- Stakeholder Management – assesses how well the relation with project stakeholders’ are managed.
- Organizational Governance – assesses how well the organization controls the alignment of its projects with
the corporate strategy.
- Risk Management – assesses how well the organization defines and deals with the impact of threats and
opportunities.
- Resource Management – assesses how well the organization utilizes and develops the opportunities from
the supply chain (P3M3 Maturity Models n.d., p.3).
It’s obvious that PjM3 model is focused more on integration between project and organizational goals rather
than on project processes.
The model described by Crawford (and developed by PM Solutions) is build upon nine PMBOK’s knowledge
areas (Crawford 2002, p.4).
- Project integration management – is about identifying, defining, combining, unifying and coordinating the
various processes and project management activities.
- Project scope management
- Project time management
- Project cost management
- Project quality management
- Project human resource management
- Project communications management
- Project risk management
- Project procurement management (PMBOK Guide 2008, p.43)
The PM Solution’s model is focused on the project itself and less on its embedment into general
organizational structure. Though there is another representation of this model (Organizational Project
management maturity model, or OPM3) that concentrates on assessment of PMBOK’s process groups –
Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling, Closing (Fahrenkrog et al. n.d., p.5). In the current research
OPM3 model in Fahrenkrog’s definition will not be considered further on due to difficulty of its practical
application.
PM Solutions’ PM3 originated from SEI Capability Maturity Model Integration (Crawford 2002, p.5), which is
widely used nowadays in order to improve organizational performance and its business processes (SEI
n.d.a). CMMI is a collection of models for different business areas – CMMI for Services, CMMI for
Acquisitions, CMMI for Development. Besides proposing methods for maturity assessments, CMMI presents
techniques to audit maturity appraisals (SEI n.d.b). “The system assists the SEI Appraisal Program in its
three functions: appraisal quality control; training, authorizing, and providing resources for Lead Appraisers;
and monitoring and reporting appraisal results.” (SEI n.d.c)
Tarne (2007) also referred to an overview of the PM Solutions model supplying it with recommendations on
how to improve project management maturity level. He proposed three steps of the improvement:
Determine the ideal maturity level for the organization,
Assess the current level of maturity, Conducting interviews with key project resources and project
managers,
Reviewing project documentation,
Completing thorough surveys to assess the degree to which the processes are defined and followed,
Create an Improvement Plan.
Determination of the ideal maturity level for the organization is an important decision, because each level
increase is resource consumable in terms of time, effort and even budget. The organization should balance
costs and benefits. For example, transition from the level 3 to 4 needs integration of the project
management practices with corporate systems (Tarne 2007).
As showed by the Center for Business Practices (CBP), increase in the project management maturity level by
one point results in performance benefits, customer satisfaction, schedule performance, cost performance,
project quality and many other areas (Tarne 2007).
Another PMMM is described by Kerzner (2001). He gave one of the most comprehensive methodology for
project management maturity assessment. The proposed model includes lists of questions on each of the
maturity levels. Each question list in the Kerzner’s model contain up to 80 question blocks consisting of 5
bullet-points to choose. The core difference of the PMMM proposed by Kerzner from the standard PMMM
developed OGC (see above) is the idea of overlap between maturity levels (Kerzner 2001, p.43). This leads
to a difference in project management maturity assessment. Kerzner proposes to appraise where the
company is positioned within each level of maturity starting from the Level 1. In case the organization
gathers enough points on the level 1, the level 2 positioning can be assessed (Kerzner 2001, p.66). But it is
still possible that all maturity levels are overlapped at the company (2001, p.45). The levels 3, 4 and 5 form
a continuous improvement cycle, so that there is a feedback between them (see Picture 3). This gives a
possibility for the company to develop a distinctive approach for development on each maturity level rather
than grow sequentially from the level to level (2001, p.43). Kerzner notes that “the magnitude of the
overlap is based upon the amount of risk the organization is willing to tolerate” (2001, p.43).
Picture 3. Overlapping levels and feedback among the five levels of project management maturity (Kerzner
2001, p.44).

Along with the standardized Maturity models described above, there are analogues models developed
specifically for the certain conditions (Wazed and Ahmed 2009), though they are not relevant for the current
study.
Fusion of project management assessment models
As mentioned above, different project management maturity models describe project management from
different perspectives – processes and management. There were no sources found in the literature, where
these methods are used together in order to make a comprehensive overview of the organizational project
management levels. Cultural models used by different authors can also describe only the organizational level
of the culture. At the same time, project management methodology implementation is an example of change
management, where the latter is defined as “a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and
organizations from a current state to a desired future state” (Wikipedia 2010 c). Graham mentioned that
organizational change can be only successful when people accept it (1989, p.209). And Heathfield wrote that
the last and the most difficult step of change management is shift in people’s behavior (2010). This
supposes that project management implementation should take into account also behavior of the project
stakeholders. It is obvious that analysis on each separate level (organizational – managers and processes –
employees) cannot give a comprehensive view of the situation. Organizational level analysis doesn’t cover
processes and behavior of individuals and cannot lead to recommendations on making current success a
repeatable story. Vice versa, the analysis on processes and individuals’ level doesn’t show, if these
processes lead to what the organization considers a success.
To overcome the above issue, the author developed a model integrating project management from both
representations – organizational and processes. The model includes assessment of the organizational
culture, project culture intelligence, Project management maturity on the organizational level, Project
management maturity on the processes level. Besides, customers’ opinion is taken into account (Project
management maturity on the customers’ level). The model is presented on the Picture 4.

Picture 4. Five Pillars of the Project Management Audit – “5PMA model” (© Pereverzev M.O.).

This model is based on the axis of Culture-Processes, Employees-Organization, Customers that represent
the space, where project manager operates. Processes are the essence of the project management. It is the
employees who use the processes in their routine work, but in order to support sustainable processes the
employees should accept the correspondent culture on personal level (project culture intelligence) and form
a negotiated organizational culture. At the same time, the project management methodology can be only of
use in case it is appreciated by the customers, which provide the goal to all the organization’s work. The
author proposes a concept of the Project Management Space, or PMS©, in order to describe unity of these
five basic notions (Picture 5).

Picture 5. Project management space, PMS (©Pereverzev M.O.).

In order to conduct the study in accordance with the design, the author chose relevant methods mentioned
in the Literature review (Table 1).
Table 1. Origin of the assessment methods used in the research.
[1] OPM3 – organizational project management maturity model
The 5PMA model is based on the PMS concept and differs from other previously known project management
models giving a possibility to comprehensively assess the organization from the top to the bottom based on
 the Project Management Space© axes: culture, processes, employees, organization and customers. The
5PMA model is developed on the basis of the previously known separate assessment models: Project
management maturity, Organizational and Project culture, Culture intelligence. The value of the 5PMA model
was proved during the study.
The author got PhD in Biophysics at the Moscow State University and MBA at Mirbis (Moscow) and London
Met Business Schools. He has seven years of experience in project management at national and
multinational farmaceutical and healthcare IT companies.

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