Honorary Industry Advisor
Darci Prado, PhD
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, Brazil
Industries: Consulting, many public and private organizations in multiple countries; organizational project management maturity expert; executive advisor on innovation, strategy, project management, PM maturity
Darci Prado is a Brazilian management consultant and writer and works as Senior Advisor at the consultancy company FALCONI, which operates in several countries. He lives in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, is married with 2 children and 4 grandchildren. He graduated in Engineering from the Federal University of Minas Gerais – UFMG (1970) and obtained a Ph.D in Engineering from UNICAMP (2011). He was a Professor at the UFMG School of Engineering from 1971 to 2004 and worked at IBM between 1971 and 1995. He was one of the founders of the PMI chapters in Minas Gerais State and Paraná State, being a member of the first board of directors of the Minas Gerais chapter between 1998 and 2002. He was president of the Minas Gerais State chapter of IPMA between 2006 and 2008.
Darci is the author of the Prado-MEPCP methodology, the Prado-PMMM maturity model and the Prado-SISGEP software. He is the author of 8 books on project management and 3 books on operations research. Among his books, two were translated in Spain and Italy. His books have sold over 100k copies, mainly in Brazil, but also in Italy and Spain. He has published dozens of articles in various media, such as PM World Journal and MundoPM.
In his work as a consultant at FALCONI (since 1996), he acted as a team leader in hundreds of consultancy projects in public and private institutions from the most diverse segments of the economy. He provided project management training to 2,000+ professionals in Brazil and abroad, including a PhD graduate course. From 2014 onwards, he began working internally at FALCONI as an advisor to the presidency on internal and external matters on topics such as strategy, project management, maturity and digital innovation.
His maturity model (Prado-PMMM) was developed in 2002 and includes 5 levels and 7 dimensions. From 2005 onwards he launched a research on Maturity in Project Management (www.maturityresearch.com) in Brazil, together with Russell Archibald and this research has been repeated since then. From 2010 onwards, the research also began to be carried out in Italy, under the leadership of ISIPM (Istituto Italiano di Project Management).
The research not only obtains data that allows evaluating the maturity of each organization, but also obtains performance data (success, delays, cost overruns and scope execution) which allows for various crossings and stratifications, such as by type of organization, category of project, industry segment, etc. This work has been very well received by the business and academic community. Hundreds of prestigious public and private organizations have participated in the research. Each one may later use the information on the website and on the book “Maturity in Project Management” to create their growth plans.
The maturity questionnaire is always available on the website and anyone can answer it, being a professional from public or private organizations that run projects, or a professional with a purely academic interest. After completing the questionnaire, the user automatically receives his/her maturity assessment (a score between 1 and 5) and the percentage of adherence to the maturity dimensions. It is important to add that the data that is considered to produce the research reports are only those from professionals from organizations that run projects.
According to a PMWJ editorial in October 2020, “The best PM maturity research and best evidence of a PM maturity model being used by organizations that I am aware of is that developed in Brazil by Prof Darci Prado, and the associated research into organizational PM maturity run in Brazil since 2005”.
Darci Prado is an international speaker, having worked in Brazil, Portugal, Italy, France, Mexico and the USA. He is a Qualis member of IPMA Brazil and in 2006 he has gotten the IPMA Level B certification. In 2010 he was chosen as one of the 5 Brazilian personalities of the decade in Project Management by PMI-Rio de Janeiro State.
Profile created November 2023
