Summary Of Bent Flyvbjerg And Dan Gardner S How Big Things Get Done

Buy now to get the main key ideas from Bent Flyvbjerg & Dan Gardner's How Big Things Get Done Big projects are high-risk and high-cost by nature. In How Big Things Get Done (2023), megaproject expert Bent Flyvbjerg and bestselling author Dan Gardner share principles for completing major projects effectively, avoiding extreme budget and timeline overruns. They explain the psychological reasons why leaders rush into projects and detail the antidote, which is detailed planning with accurate cost and time forecasting. They highlight the fallacy of improvisation in creative projects, and promote the concept of modularity as a transformative tool for projects, especially those aimed at combating climate change.

“Why do big projects go wrong so often, and are there any lessons you can use when renovating your kitchen? Bent Flyvbjerg is the ‘megaproject’ expert and Dan Gardner brings the storytelling skills to How Big Things Get Done, with examples ranging from a Jimi Hendrix studio to the Sydney Opera House.”—Financial Times (Best Books of 2023 So Far) “Entertaining . . . There are lessons here for managers of all stripes.”—The Economist 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.

Get the Summary of Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner's How Big Things Get Done in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. "How Big Things Get Done" examines the challenges and complexities of managing large-scale projects, drawing on Bent Flyvbjerg's extensive research into over 16,000 projects across various sectors. The book reveals a consistent pattern of megaprojects exceeding budgets, missing deadlines, and underdelivering on benefits, a phenomenon Flyvbjerg terms the "Iron Law of Megaprojects." The authors discuss the inherent risks in complex systems and the importance of thorough planning and efficient delivery to mitigate these risks...

'Important, timely, instructive and entertaining' - Daniel Kahneman, bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow 'Wise, vivid and unforgettable' - Tim Harford, bestselling author of The Undercover Economist 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.

For much of the past century, we have viewed the issue of parking from the driver’s seat. It follows that key narratives about parking reaffirm the immediate needs of the driver. A consequence of this approach is a failure to understand the significant damage that parking causes to the destination. That damage is amplified by ‘cheap, easy’ parking at the expense of place and access outcomes. Viewing parking from an urban planning and design perspective highlights different issues and opportunities. Five perspectives are offered: Place – If we gave drivers all the parking they wanted, the destination would not be worth visiting. Politics – Parking is intensely territorial, emotional, and prone to populism, and this is a barrier to strategic and sustainable parking reform. Policy – Parking tends to be focused on the ‘me, here and now’ needs of the driver at the expense of bigger picture and longer term policy objectives. Price – Subsidized parking exists behind opaque pricing mechanisms. In contrast, a transparent accounting of costs is a vehicle for strategic parking reform. Professional practice – Parking is a significant land-use issue, located at the juncture of transport and urban planning and design. Improving urban parking outcomes requires an integrated and collaborative planning process. An alternative view of parking is timely as new technologies and economies fundamentally change everything we understand about parking. A potential paradigm shift is in the making. Rethinking Parking provides a pathway to a better parking/place balance and access to destinations worth visiting. It is valuable reading for students and professionals engaged in transport, planning, urban access, and design.

In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell, Gardner explores a new way of thinking about the decisions we make. We are the safest and healthiest human beings who ever lived, and yet irrational fear is growing, with deadly consequences — such as the 1,595 Americans killed when they made the mistake of switching from planes to cars after September 11. In part, this irrationality is caused by those — politicians, activists, and the media — who promote fear for their own gain. Culture also matters. But a more fundamental cause is human psychology. Working with risk science pioneer Paul Slovic, author Dan Gardner sets out to explain in a compulsively readable fashion just what that statement above means as to how we make decisions and run our lives. We learn that the brain has not one but two systems to analyze risk. One is primitive, unconscious, and intuitive. The other is conscious and rational. The two systems often agree, but occasionally they come to very different conclusions. When that happens, we can find ourselves worrying about what the statistics tell us is a trivial threat — terrorism, child abduction, cancer caused by chemical pollution — or shrugging off serious risks like obesity and smoking. Gladwell told us about “the black box” of our brains; Gardner takes us inside, helping us to understand how to deconstruct the information we’re bombarded with and respond more logically and adaptively to our world. Risk is cutting-edge reading.

THE ULTIMATE INSIDER LOOK AT THE NEWEST TITANS OF TECH - AND WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM THEIR SUCCESS Silicon Valley's newest billionaires are a unique and unconventional breed of entrepreneur: young, bold and taking the world by storm with their extreme speed, insatiable hunger and progressive leadership. They turn just one brilliant insight into money at a rate never before seen - creating companies that, even with no revenue, garner insane valuations. You Only Have to Be Right Once is the first comprehensive look at the people behind the biggest companies in tech. It behind-the-scenes examinations of billionaire tech titans including Tesla's Elon Musk, Instagram's Kevin Systrom, Airbnb's Brian Chesky and Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel - and reveals what these super-entrepreneurs say about their own success. Introduced, edited and updated by Forbes editor Randall Lane, this is the definitive collection of everything we can learn from these incredible game changers, and what their next moves spell for the future of business.

In 2008, as the price of oil surged above $140 a barrel, experts said it would soon hit $200; a few months later it plunged to $30. In 1967, they said the USSR would have one of the fastest-growing economies in the year 2000; in 2000, the USSR did not exist. In 1911, it was pronounced that there would be no more wars in Europe; we all know how that turned out. Face it, experts are about as accurate as dart-throwing monkeys. And yet every day we ask them to predict the future — everything from the weather to the likelihood of a catastrophic terrorist attack. Future Babble is the first book to examine this phenomenon, showing why our brains yearn for certainty about the future, why we are attracted to those who predict it confidently, and why it’s so easy for us to ignore the trail of outrageously wrong forecasts. In this fast-paced, example-packed, sometimes darkly hilarious book, journalist Dan Gardner shows how seminal research by UC Berkeley professor Philip Tetlock proved that pundits who are more famous are less accurate — and the average expert is no more accurate than a flipped coin. Gardner also draws on current research in cognitive psychology, political science, and behavioral economics to discover something quite reassuring: The future is always uncertain, but the end is not always near.