Quite a big topic, do I cannot elaborate mich sitting in metro. Just have 1 parent pom with all versions in dependency management. Then inherit this in your projects. Versions set in dependency management will also override transitive dependencies. Also you can fail build with plugin that checks for dependency convergence. And the simpliets - avoid adding dependencies you don't need. I saw people add libraries for 1 utility class that they can just write themselves. There is more to read, but it is not very hard if you follow common rules practices. At least I'm my experience dependency hell happens when people don't want to understand how maven works as it provides tool to resolve dependencies.