diff --git a/plugins/maven/src/index.ts b/plugins/maven/src/index.ts
index 2fc129cc8..f877e8be6 100644
--- a/plugins/maven/src/index.ts
+++ b/plugins/maven/src/index.ts
@@ -112,7 +112,8 @@ export default class MavenPlugin implements IPlugin {
 
   /** Detect whether the parent pom.xml has the versions-maven-plugin **/
   private static async detectVersionMavenPlugin(): Promise<boolean> {
-    const pom = await getPom();
+    await maven.createEffectivePom(pluginOptions, Auto);
+    const pom = await getPom("target/output.xml");
     const pomDom = new jsdom.JSDOM(pom.pomXml, { contentType: "text/xml" })
       .window.document;
     const versionsMavenPluginNode = pomDom.evaluate(
diff --git a/plugins/maven/src/maven.ts b/plugins/maven/src/maven.ts
index bd04c9c7d..165de86e2 100644
--- a/plugins/maven/src/maven.ts
+++ b/plugins/maven/src/maven.ts
@@ -49,3 +49,18 @@ export async function updatePoms(
 
   await execPromise("git", ["commit", "-am", message, "--no-verify"]);
 }
+
+/** Create effective pom file with maven */
+export async function createEffectivePom(
+  options: IMavenPluginOptions,
+  auto: Auto
+) {
+  auto.logger.verbose.info(
+    `Creating effective-pom file in target directory`
+  );
+
+  await executeMaven(options, [
+    "help:effective-pom",
+    "-Doutput='target/output.xml'"
+  ]);
+}