International Journal of Managing Projects in Business

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe a doctoral research study, including a summary of key literature review topics, the application of an action research methodology, key research findings and potential areas of future research.

Design/methodology/approach – Research reported in this paper was based upon a series of five cycles of action research.

Findings – An Outcome Profile™ template can be used to guide project stakeholders through the process of identifying, defining and aligning intangible project outcomes with tangible project outputs.

Practical implications – The research study will advance general management and project management research and practice by providing organisations with an improved template and method for linking project stakeholders' outcomes and benefits-based perspective of project success with the more traditional project management outputs-based perspective of project success. The research study, in itself provides a “how-to” guide.

Originality/value – This paper alerts practitioners and academics to this recent research work to improve the definition of intangible project outcomes; to better determine what value a given project is expected to deliver.