How to make maven build of child module with parent module?

Question

I have multiple modules in my project and they are dependent on each other either directly or transitively. When I maven build «Project A» some where «Project D» gets build

Answer 1

For a parent project Maven will build all child modules while building parent project. Add the modules to your parent pom. Assuming A is your parent project

  
    projectB
    projectC
    projectD
  

and in modules (B,C and D), add project A as parent (This is optional, Thanks @Guillaume Polet)

 
   foo.bar
   ProjectA
   1.0-SNAPSHOT
 

So if you build projectA, it will build ProjectB, ProjectC and ProjectD. Also maven is smart enough to figure out correct build order for B,C and D.