from https://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-dependency-mechanism.html
Dependency Management
The dependency management section is a mechanism for centralizing dependency information. When you have a set of projects that inherits a common parent it's possible to put all information about the dependency in the common POM and have simpler references to the artifacts in the child POMs. The mechanism is best illustrated through some examples. Given these two POMs which extend the same parent:
Project A:
<project>
...
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-a</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-a</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>group-c</groupId>
<artifactId>excluded-artifact</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-a</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-b</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<type>bar</type>
<scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>
Project B:
<project>
...
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-c</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-b</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<type>war</type>
<scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-a</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-b</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<type>bar</type>
<scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>
These two example POMs share a common dependency and each has one non-trivial dependency. This information can be put in the parent POM like this:
<project>
...
<dependencyManagement>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-a</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-a</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>group-c</groupId>
<artifactId>excluded-artifact</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-c</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-b</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<type>war</type>
<scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-a</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-b</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<type>bar</type>
<scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>
</project>
Then the two child poms become much simpler:
<project>
...
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-a</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-a</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-a</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-b</artifactId>
<!-- This is not a jar dependency, so we must specify type. -->
<type>bar</type>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>
<project>
...
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-c</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-b</artifactId>
<!-- This is not a jar dependency, so we must specify type. -->
<type>war</type>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>group-a</groupId>
<artifactId>artifact-b</artifactId>
<!-- This is not a jar dependency, so we must specify type. -->
<type>bar</type>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>
you can do this also for plugins with
What is pluginManagement in Maven's pom.xml?