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How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors Behind Every Successful Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration by [Bent Flyvbjerg, Dan Gardner]

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Bent Flyvbjerg

Dan Gardner

How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors Behind Every Successful Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration Kindle Edition

by Bent Flyvbjerg (Author), Dan Gardner (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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‘Important, timely, instructive and entertaining’ – Daniel Kahneman, bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

'Entertaining . . . compelling . . . there are lessons here for managers of all stripes' – The Economist

World expert Bent Flyvbjerg and bestselling author Dan Gardner reveal the secrets to successfully planning and delivering ambitious projects on any scale.

Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant new reality. Think of how Apple’s iPod went from a project with a single employee to an enormously successful product launch in eleven months. But such successes are the exception. Consider how London’s Crossrail project delivered five years late and billions over budget. More modest endeavours, whether launching a small business, organizing a conference, or just finishing a work project on time, also commonly fail. Why?

Understanding what distinguishes the triumphs from the failures has been the life’s work of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg. In How Big Things Get Done, he identifies the errors that lead projects to fail, and the research-based principles that will make yours succeed:

- Understand your odds. If you don’t know them, you won’t win.
- Plan slow, act fast. Getting to the action quick feels right. But it’s wrong.
- Think right to left. Start with your goal, then identify the steps to get there.
- Find your Lego. Big is best built from small.
- Master the unknown unknowns. Most think they can’t, so they fail. Flyvbjerg shows how you can.

Full of vivid examples ranging from the building of the Sydney Opera House to the making of the latest Pixar blockbusters, How Big Things Get Done reveals how to get any ambitious project done – on time and on budget.

Print length

296 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Macmillan
Publication date

16 February 2023
Reading age

18 years and up
File size

1738 KB
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Review

Important, timely, instructive and entertaining. What more could you ask for? -- Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

A wise, vivid and unforgettable combination of inspiring storytelling with decades of practical research and experience -- Tim Harford, bestselling author of How to Make the World Add Up

Having researched the properties of planning errors, I am confident that nobody has studied the topic more broadly and deeply than Bent Flyvbjerg. His focus ranges from Olympic Games to the renovation of your dog house -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, and author of The Black Swan

My only complaint about this book is that it wasn’t written earlier. It distills decades of systematic research from thousands of projects. The result is a crystal-clear pattern of surprising reasons why almost all big human projects fail to deliver as expected -- Ola Rosling, bestselling co-author of Factfulness

The best scientific advice on project planning. It is arguably the bargain of the century.For a few dollars you can tap into thousands of dollars of insights in executive-education classrooms -- Philip Tetlock, bestselling co-author of Superforecasting

A truly fascinating read.There’s a practical pay-off, too: a toolbox with eleven smart heuristics for better project leadership that every planner should know -- Gerd Gigerenzer, author of Gut Feelings --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Review

Important, timely, instructive and entertaining. What more could you ask for? -- Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

A wise, vivid and unforgettable combination of inspiring storytelling with decades of practical research and experience -- Tim Harford, bestselling author of How to Make the World Add Up

Having researched the properties of planning errors, I am confident that nobody has studied the topic more broadly and deeply than Bent Flyvbjerg. His focus ranges from Olympic Games to the renovation of your dog house -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, and author of The Black Swan

My only complaint about this book is that it wasn’t written earlier. It distills decades of systematic research from thousands of projects. The result is a crystal-clear pattern of surprising reasons why almost all big human projects fail to deliver as expected -- Ola Rosling, bestselling co-author of Factfulness

The best scientific advice on project planning. It is arguably the bargain of the century.For a few dollars you can tap into thousands of dollars of insights in executive-education classrooms -- Philip Tetlock, bestselling co-author of Superforecasting

A truly fascinating read.There’s a practical pay-off, too: a toolbox with eleven smart heuristics for better project leadership that every planner should know -- Gerd Gigerenzer, author of Gut Feelings --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BDZMJVW8
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Macmillan (16 February 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1738 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 296 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #5,240 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews:
72 ratings

About the authors

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Bent Flyvbjerg
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Bent Flyvbjerg is the first BT Professor and inaugural Chair of Major Programme Management at the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School and the Villum Kann Rasmussen Professor and Chair at the IT University of Copenhagen. He is the most cited scholar in the world in project management. His books and articles have been translated into 21 languages. Flyvbjerg received a knighthood, two Fulbright Scholarships, the Project Management Institute Research Achievement Award (the "Nobel" of project management), and many other honors for his professional accomplishments. He is a frequent commentator in the news, including The New York Times, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the BBC, and CNN. He serves as an advisor to 10 Downing Street, the U.S. and Chinese governments, and Fortune 500 companies. He is co-author of How Big Things Get Done (Crown Penguin/Random), principal author of Megaprojects and Risk (Cambridge University Press) and editor of the print and online versions of The Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management (Oxford University Press). See more at uk.linkedin.com/in/flyvbjerg
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Dan Gardner
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Dan Gardner is the New York Times best-selling author of books about psychology and decision-making. His work has been called "an invaluable resource for anyone who aspires to the think clearly" by The Guardian and "required reading for journalists, politicians, academics, and anyone who listens to them" by Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker.
Gardner’s books have been published in 25 countries and 19 languages.
In addition to writing, Gardner lectures on forecasting, risk, and decision-making.
Prior to becoming an author, Gardner was a newspaper columnist and feature writer whose work won or was nominated for every major award in Canadian newspaper journalism.
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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

72 global ratings

5 star		62%
4 star		19%
3 star		6%
2 star		5%
1 star		7%

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Kindle Customer

Disappointed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 22 February 2023

Verified Purchase

Just finished reading "How Big Things Get Done", and I will say I was rather disappointed. If you looking for catchy management jargon then the book is full of these but if looking for a book that provides guidance on how to successfully deliver a mega project on time and to cost then this is not the book for you. Like I say disappointed.

4 people found this helpful

John P

Terrible book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 3 March 2023

Verified Purchase

This is a terrible book: bland, and extremely superficial and simplistic. It's a waste of time. If you're an expert, go read serious work, you will gain *nothing* from this book. If you're a non-expert, you are better off reading the Financial Times—you will only be misled by the platitudes presented in this book.

Importantly, Flyvbjerg has never actually managed a big project like the Olympics. He has no credibility whatsoever in the field.

4 people found this helpful

Steve Reader

Essential reading on successful project delivery

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 20 March 2023

Verified Purchase

I've taken a keen interest in Professor Flyvbjerg's work for a number of years and luckily much of his academic writing is freely available to read online (unlike a lot of other academic writing). As such I was excited to read his first book for a popular audience and whilst this short book (200 pages not including references) naturally lacks the depth of some of his other work this is a fine digest of his ideas and one I would happily recommend to my fellow project professionals as well as to the layman.

Professor Flyvbjerg has made it his life's work to gather data on large projects and to use this to build an understanding of what makes a project successful or, as this book often focuses on, what make it fail. The book draws examples from the huge number of examples of projects that have massively overrun their budgets and schedules and in some cases failed to deliver any benefits at all. With his co-writer Dan Gardner (whose book Risk I would also recommend), the author tells relatable stories that initially focus on the human element of these failures: over commitment, poor planning, underestimating risk, hubris and optimism. Almost inevitably this draws the behavioural economics work of Daniel Kahneman into the picture (I'm not sure I've read many 'Smart Thinking' type books that don't).

The variety of case studies from the Sydney Opera House to Pixar Studios make for an engaging and highly readable book and provide fine examples to support the arguments presented for How Big Things Get Done. An example of a house restoration project gone awry brings the thesis to a human level (although not exactly relatable, the renovation goes over budget by the price of about five average houses in the UK).

No spoilers here for anyone who follows Professor Flyvbjerg's work, his main argument is for a data focused approach to projects using similar shaped projects as a basis for planning, and a repeatable modular approach to design rather than building huge one offs. This book is a neat and easily readable presentation of that thesis with easily understood examples. Hopefully it will feature in the bedside reading of policy makers and ultimately lead to a wider acceptance of the ideas within.

If there are weaknesses in the book they are often due to the lack of depth that leads to further questions. Thankfully there are pages and pages of references for further reading to explore. That said some of the questions are ones that don't yet have answers. For example the data available for reference class forecasting is not as widely available as it should be and despite the availability of some higher level data on government websites, much of the data for planning tends to be walled in due to its commercial value in competitive markets. Given the success of open source in software I've often thought about how making this data more available should be a policy focus.

I was frustrated by the short shrift given to outlier projects on the left hand side of the distribution (within schedule, under budget etc.) These are disregarded as little more than good stories for the likes of Malcolm Gladwell, whereas I think there probably are lessons to be learned about avoiding some of the bottlenecks and entrenched bureaucracy that slow down projects and cause construction to be one of industries with the lowest productivity in the UK. I'm not calling for deregulation or safety shortcuts but there are surely examples of innovation in these left of the curve projects that make them equally as worth studying as those expensive monsters on the right of the curve.

I'd like to also have read a little more about Professor Flyvbjerg's thoughts on planning. He argues convincingly that time, effort and money spent on planning at the start is better spent than that spent in delivery. I cannot disagree and there are plenty of examples in the news right now to support this (High Speed 2 for one). However the planning paralysis we seen in the UK can probably be put forward as an argument for the alternative approach of just getting on with it. Hinkley Point C would be generating electricity now if it hadn't lingered for so long. The planning documents for Sizewell C number tens of times more than those required for Hinkley Point C, a power station that it is supposedly a cookie cutter copy of. I think of the city of Bristol's proposed underground system. Local government officials argue against the project saying it will never get done and billions would be swallowed in planning by consultants. The money would be better spent on buses. This is the world of planning we exist in and whilst it might not be as expensive as a failed undersea tunnel, it can certainly be just as much of a blocker on big things getting done.

The book doesn't really delve too deeply into the realms of policy making. The solution to all of these examples is long term strategy that is immune to the whims of government and the book doesn't really cover this in depth (except where it discusses examples of how budgets are often sized to be politically expedient).

Those things being said I did spend most of my time reading this book quietly nodding my head in recognition. In my career I've seen examples of both the good behaviours and bad behaviours described, in both individuals and in organisations. It certainly provokes thought and with the support of government clients and cost sensitive companies many of its ideas could become engrained in project commissioning and delivery. The difficulties of HS2 and Hinkley Point in the UK must be feeding an appetite for more agile delivery of infrastructure projects. This book doesn't have all the answers but it certainly provides a great framework for getting big things done in the future.

Tod

Brilliant book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 5 March 2023

Verified Purchase

I’ve been delivering mega projects for 40 years and never have I read a book that drives home what matters for project success. Well written, researched and absolutely spot on. Up to date with modern thinking in this space. Written in simple language so non projects people can easily understand.

2 people found this helpful

Rafa Nola

One of the best books about delivering major programmes.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 21 February 2023

Verified Purchase

This book gives a great insight into how major programmes can be delivered effectively and efficiently! Worth reading it to understand how to avoid blacksawn.

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