How Big Things Get Done
The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything in Between
Ratings18
Average rating4.1
The secrets to successfully planning and delivering ambitious, complex projects on any scale—from home renovation to space exploration—by the world’s leading expert on megaprojects. “Important, timely, instructive, and entertaining.”—Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize–winning author of Thinking, Fast and Slow Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant, new reality. Think of how the Empire State Building went from a sketch to the jewel of New York’s skyline in twenty-one months, or how Apple’s iPod went from a project with a single employee to a product launch in eleven months. These are wonderful stories. But most of the time big visions turn into nightmares. Remember Boston’s “Big Dig”? Almost every sizeable city in the world has such a fiasco in its backyard. In fact, no less than 92% of megaprojects come in over budget or over schedule, or both. The cost of California’s high-speed rail project soared from $33 billion to $100 billon—and won’t even go where promised. More modest endeavors, 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, dubbed “the world’s leading megaproject expert.” In How Big Things Get Done, he identifies the errors in judgment and decision-making that lead projects, both big and small, to fail, and the research-based principles that will make you succeed with yours. For example: • 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. • Be a team maker. You won’t succeed without an “us.” • Master the unknown unknowns. Most think they can’t, so they fail. Flyvbjerg shows how you can. • Know that your biggest risk is you. Full of vivid examples ranging from the building of the Sydney Opera House, to the making of the latest Pixar blockbusters, to a home renovation in Brooklyn gone awry, How Big Things Get Done reveals how to get any ambitious project done—on time and on budget.
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Great book, required for anyone building something big and interconnected. Lots of lessons inside here that I found practical to take-away. End of this book got a little boring so had to kind of gloss over but the stories and anecdotes presented were very helpful!
Not my usual genre, but legitimately work related. This book does note that all the advice is scalable, so mega project, big project, small project...
This was pretty well presented, and obviously very data supported... in fact almost all data driven. While it was detailed, it was broken into sensible chapters, and built lesson onto lesson. There were loads of good example projects, and even if the reader failed to absorb any lesson, these were very interesting to read about.
The Sydney Opera House - a world renowned building, but it destroyed the career of its architect Jorn Utzon, who was fired from the project partway through construction - planned to take 5 years to build, it took 14 years, and came in 1400% over budget. Utzon was the scapegoat, Joe Cahill was the NSW Premier, and he wanted a legacy project in place for his retirement. He demanded construction began on time, despite the building design not being complete - they barely had an idea how to build it. They needed to dynamite sections and clear them away to start again! This one provides a series of good lessons, especially since it is world renowned and ultimately turned it failure into a success.
Not all the examples in this book are buildings (but they are the ones that interest me). Pixar Animation Studios are held up as a example of planning - a key lesson - plan your project as well as as extensively as you can. Solve as many of your problems as you can in advance of beginning. Because once you have started, that is when delays and problems cost the big money.
Not all the projects are doom and gloom stories - there are examples of success stories - the Empire State Building, Gehry's Guggenheim, T5 Heathrow Airport are some.
I won't attempt to summarise the book, but it does end with eleven take away rules (he calls them heuristics) for better project leadership. These are (for my benefit, not yours - I have to give the book back!) noted below. FYI I paraphrased a few of these...
Hire a masterbuilder - experience counts big time. It is worth paying up for expertise.
Get your team right - “Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better.” Setting up a good, experienced team who will work together is a key.
Ask “why?” - asking why you are doing the project will focus you on what matters, your ultimate purpose and your result. Make sure you don't mistake your outcome with your why...
Build with Lego - this just means modular. Break your big thing into little things, that are preferably the same. Very applicable to solar, server farms, satellites etc and many building projects - schools, hospitals, etc where repetition occurs.
Think slow, act fast - time spent in planning, testing and preparing is significantly cheaper than time spent pausing construction to find answers. Prepare well then build quickly. The longer you build for, the more time for something to go wrong!
Take the outside view - your project is special, but very very rarely is it unique. Learn from the experiences of other similar projects - data is based on project class references.
Watch your downside - risk can kill your project, no upside can compensate this. Focus on not losing, every day, while keeping an eye on the prize - your goal.
Say no and walk away - at the outset, will the project have the people and funds necessary to succeed? If not, walk away.
Make friends and keep them friendly - keep diplomatic relations at all times, especially the good times - its risk management. If something goes wrong, it's too late to start developing bridges then!
Build climate mitigation into your project - no task is more urgent than mitigating the climate crisis. For greater good, and the good of your project.
Know that your biggest risk is you - self explanatory really. Projects fail because of leadership not taking on board the rules above.
I haven't read more of these types of management books to be able to compare, but this one had a good focus, and almost all the content was relevant to me. If for nothing else, the project stories are great.
4 stars.
