Journal article 2026
IEEE Engineering Management Review Vol. 54, No. 4 · August 2026
Planning complex projects for value creation requires decision makers to look beyond delivery outcomes and discuss who receives value, which value dimensions matter, when value emerges and how governance should remain open to an evolving actor ecosystem.
Complex projects increasingly create economic, social and environmental value for actors who may not be known when planning begins. Traditional planning approaches centred on predefined scope, cost, time and outputs struggle to capture this broader value logic. This research develops a practical discussion guide for value-based complex project planning, using complex space projects as the empirical context. The guide, named PACTO within the paper, organizes planning around five connected items: purpose, actors, costs and benefits, time and governance.
How can decision makers plan complex space projects from a value-based perspective?
The study first develops a conceptual representation of complex space projects as vehicles of value creation from the literature. It then codevelops and validates that representation through 12 interviews with senior experts selected for their experience in planning and managing institutional and commercial space projects. Interviewees had an average of 27 years of professional experience, and the interviews lasted more than one hour on average. A directed content-analysis approach was used to refine the five planning items and translate them into an actionable discussion guide.
Value-based planning starts by asking how project outcomes create value rather than treating successful delivery as the final objective. This broadens planning from predefined outputs toward longer-term economic, social and environmental benefits.
Complex projects can create value for actors beyond the primary stakeholder set and long after the delivery phase. Decision makers therefore need to consider evolving actor ecosystems and the whole project lifecycle when discussing value creation and capture.
When new actors, needs and value opportunities emerge over time, closed governance can constrain value creation. The guide therefore links value-based planning to more open governance arrangements that support engagement, coordination and adaptation across the ecosystem.
The research operationalizes the value-based perspective in project studies. Instead of leaving value creation as an abstract principle, it turns it into five concrete areas of discussion that decision makers can use during the front end of complex projects.
Although developed in the space context, the logic is relevant to capital-intensive and high-technology projects in which value is multidimensional, distributed across many actors and realized over long time horizons. It provides a practical bridge between project planning, ecosystem thinking and value theory.
Paravano, A., Locatelli, G., & Trucco, P. (2026). Planning Complex Projects for Value Creation: A Discussion Guide for Decision Makers. IEEE Engineering Management Review, 54(4). https://doi.org/10.1109/EMR.2025.3628802
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