Designing Megaproject Organizations: The 4 Coordination Roles of Clients

  Complexity   Giga Projects   Organizational Project Management  

Megaprojects are typically associated with high-stakes, large-scale infrastructure, such as railways, airports, and nuclear power plants. These projects are more than just engineering feats, they are platforms for environmental, economic, institutional, and social transformation.

Global annual investment in megaprojects and infrastructure is expected to require at least US$ 6.9 trillion per year through 2030 (according to an OECD report developed with the World Bank and UN Environment), representing a significant share of global economic activity.

Effective organizational design is critical to megaproject success. Organizational design establishes the structure that supports scheduling, budgeting, stakeholder engagement, governance and other aspects of megaproject client organizations.

Yet, structure alone is not enough. Coordination, often reduced to a personal/individual competence, is the glue that binds organizational elements, promoting integration, adaptation and long-term performance throughout the project.

In our study published in the Project Management Journal (Zani, Denicol & Broyd, 2024), we propose a framework where coordination is treated as a deliberate and strategic function, led by the client and taken into higher levels of the organizational strategy.

The framework (Figure 1) highlights four key coordination roles that clients can adopt, as …

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