Yeah, IDEA can use a maven POM file as a project file (i.e. use the
Maven model as a project model instead of having to manually create a
project). It seems to work reasonably well, especially when you have a
Maven project that also knows about the source files for libraries. This
way, not only do you not have to worry about the dependencies but you
also get to step in the code of libraries when debugging without having
to set anything up. Quite a time saver when you have to deal with a
modularized project.
Or run 'mvn idea:idea'. ;-)