THE FRAMEWORK
How the assessment works
The Planaletix Digital Project Delivery, Cost & Value Engineering Maturity Assessment (PCV) evaluates an AEC firm's delivery process and the money running through it across twenty dimensions in two parts. Part A measures the digital backbone of delivery: delivery strategy and PMIS, planning and scheduling, commercial administration, progress measurement, procurement and subcontractor digitalisation, contract and claims records, risk management, quality management, interface management and the controls team itself. Part B measures the full value-engineering lifecycle: the firm cost database, conceptual estimating and target value design, design-stage VE and optioneering, model-based quantification, lifecycle costing, tender pricing, construction-stage VE and change valuation, cost control and earned value, close-out feedback, and the commercial team's digital capability.
Half of construction leaders rate their own organisation below technology maturity, and only a third of quantity surveyors use digital tools on most projects. Value engineering fails the same way delivery controls fail — not for lack of talent, but because the cost database, the baseline, the register and the record live in personal spreadsheets. The PCV measures whether the firm's delivery machine and its money thread are governed systems or heroic improvisation.
20 DIMENSIONS · 200 QUESTIONS
Explore the dimensions and maturity levels
WHO IT IS FOR
Built for AEC leadership teams
The PCV is designed for the leaders accountable for delivering projects and protecting margins:
- Managing Directors and Projects Directors of contractors and EPCs
- Commercial Directors, Chief Estimators and Heads of Cost Management
- Development Directors and Project Directors of developers and owner-operators
- Managing Partners of cost consultancies and QS practices
- Planning Managers and Heads of Project Controls
- Contract and claims leaders concerned with records, notices and entitlement
- Design consultancy directors running design-stage VE and cost-driven design reviews
- PMO leaders standardising delivery across a portfolio
The PCV evaluates the firm as a delivery and commercial institution — not one project, one system or one estimator. It applies to construction contractors, EPC contractors, developers, owner-operators, cost consultancies and design consultants of any size, in any country. At the start you select your firm type — or several — and the assessment automatically presents only the dimensions applicable to your selection, renormalising the scoring so your result is comparable and fair. Questions pair contractor-side and developer/consultant-side evidence throughout, so the same instrument serves the party that builds, the party that pays and the party that advises.
STANDARDS ALIGNMENT
Mapped to the standards you work to
Every dimension of the PCV framework maps to the practices and evidence shaping digital delivery and cost management:
- AACE International recommended practices for cost engineering and project controls
- Earned value management standards — control baselines, rules of credit, CPI/SPI, forecast at completion
- RICS professional guidance on digital quantity surveying and cost management
- FIDIC and NEC contract administration in digital environments — notices, records, claims evidence
- KPMG Global Construction Survey 2025/2026 — 375 industry leaders; 50% self-rate below technology maturity, only 10% cutting-edge; 27% name integrated PMIS a top priority
- RICS Digitalisation in Construction 2024 — only 32% of QSs use digital tools on most projects; whole-life thinking digitally supported by just 28%
- Target value design and lean cost-management practice
- GCC giga-project controls regimes — P6 baselines, EVM and PMIS mandated by client PMOs
WAYS TO TAKE IT
Self-assessment, validation or a full programme
THE FRAMEWORK AT A GLANCE
Digital Project Delivery, Cost & Value Engineering: all 20 dimensions
Part A — Project Delivery & Controls (50%)
- D1 Delivery Strategy & PMIS — risk gate
- D2 Planning & Scheduling Digitalisation
- D3 Commercial Administration Processes
- D4 Progress Measurement & Reporting
- D5 Procurement & Subcontractor Digitalisation
- D6 Contract & Claims Records
- D7 Risk & Opportunity Management
- D8 Quality Management Digitalisation
- D9 Interface & Stakeholder Management
- D10 Delivery Controls Capability
Part B — Cost & Value Engineering (50%)
- D11 Cost Data Governance & Benchmarks Database — risk gate
- D12 Conceptual Estimating & Target Value Design — risk gate
- D13 Design-Stage VE & Optioneering
- D14 Model-Based Quantification & Estimating
- D15 Lifecycle Costing & Whole-Life Value
- D16 Tender Pricing & Procurement VE
- D17 Construction-Stage VE & Change Valuation
- D18 Cost Control & Earned Value Integration
- D19 Close-Out Feedback & Cost Intelligence
- D20 CVE Capability, Tools & Integration
QUESTIONS
Frequently asked questions
We already run P6 and an ERP — do we need this?
Tools are not the question; governance is. The assessment measures whether baselines are controlled, records are contemporaneous, the cost database is fed by every close-out, and VE value is tracked from proposal to outturn — the practices that decide whether the tools pay for themselves.
What is the VE stage view?
Every Part B dimension is tagged to a stage of the value-engineering lifecycle. The report scores each stage separately, so you can see, for example, strong design-stage VE undone by a weak tender handover, or a cost database too thin to support credible concept estimates.
We are a cost consultancy — is Part A relevant to us?
Mostly yes. Select "Cost Consultancy" at the start and the assessment scopes to the seventeen dimensions a QS practice is accountable for — including commercial administration, contract records and the whole of Part B — and skips contractor capabilities like site quality digitalisation.
Who should answer the questions?
The person accountable for delivery or commercial performance — typically the Projects Director or Commercial Director — ideally after consulting planning, controls, estimating and contracts leads. Answers save automatically.
How long does it take?
150–180 minutes for the full 20 dimensions; less where firm-type scoping reduces the set. It can be completed over several sessions.
Is our data secure?
The report is generated in your browser. Answers and scores are stored in Planaletix's secured assessment record for your engagement and are never shared.