The observed phenomenon is that projects in general are failing, and though professional associations have been upgrading project management standards, methodologies and tools, these efforts have not contributed to a general increase in project management success. Projects, systems, products and services are becoming more complex, which inevitably leads to competency and maturity issues. Constant project failures raise questions about the current project risk management concepts, practices, people, behaviour, contextual, and technology issues required to achieve consistency and the successful delivery of projects. An inquiry into Eskom, South Africa’s dominant electricity generator and supplier, found that the conventional project management processes aggravate the risk of management incompetence when dealing with complex projects where uncertainty and risk are perceived to be higher. When training project risk management practitioners, Eskom does not apply a holistic approach that considers the impact of complexity, maturity and competency on projects and their performance. The skills and competency requirements are not stipulated when the risk advisor moves to a more senior advisory role in low-complexity projects, and from there into high-complexity projects. Eskom’s ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to competency development does not consider the fact that projects have different complexities. The researcher sought to ascertain whether there is a relationship between complexity, maturity and competency in project risk management and if so, to determine whether such a relationship affects the performance of projects. An interpretive and subjective research philosophy was adopted, using inductive reasoning and a qualitative research approach to probe the literature. The researcher applied field research with participative action research for the interviews and a qualitative survey to collect data and verify the findings of the literature review. A semi-structured questionnaire was used for in-depth interviews with six Eskom senior managers. Stratified sampling was used for the collection of data from 207 Eskom project risk management practitioners. They were invited to respond to the web-based survey comprising a questionnaire with multiple-choice questions on project and project risk management. Eighty project risk management practitioners responded to the survey. Further, a checklist of possible project risk management competencies was emailed to project management experts in Eskom and national and international project management associations for their input. Thematic analysis and content analysis were applied as the qualitative method of analysis. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded, and the web-based survey responses were categorised, analysed and interpreted to create an analytical narrative about the present project and project risk management situation in Eskom. The themes or commonalities discovered in the literature and field research, as well as the competency unit criteria from the updated checklist, was used to populate three matrices (technical, contextual and behavioural) for comparison purposes. The research findings indicated that project complexity is driven by the interaction of management, systems and the product delivered. All projects have some level of complexity and Eskom should acknowledge differing complexities. Competency development includes the development of technical, contextual and behavioural competencies. Most importantly, there is a notable relationship between complexity, maturity and competency in the project environment. These findings led to the creation of a sense-making framework in which the relationships between the research elements, their sub-elements and project risk management were combined to indicate how such a relationship could lead to the successful execution of projects. The final outcome of the research is a competency framework to guide the development of project risk practitioners. Recommendations from the research findings are that project performance can be improved by constantly enhancing the competencies of project risk practitioners and by introducing a defined career path in which the different types of projects are considered. Eskom should instil a project risk management culture to ensure maturity of the organisation and sensitivity to the varying levels of complexity in projects.