How Big Things Get Done

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One of The Economist’s Best Books of 2023

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.

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.One of The Economist’s Best Books of 2023
Shortlisted for the FT Business Book of the Year 2023

“Entertaining . . . The picture that [Flyvbjerg] and Mr Gardner draw of why projects, large and small, tend to go wrong is compelling. . . . There are lessons here for managers of all stripes.”—The Economist

“Stories of gigantic and costly failures, from the Sydney Opera House to successive editions of the Olympic Games, are entertaining and chastening in equal measure. But Flyvbjerg and Gardner also manage to extract valuable lessons about how to plan, forecast and execute any size of project, be it a kitchen remodelling or a high-speed trainlink.”—Financial Times

“Ignore [this book] at your peril.”—Peter Coy, The New York Times

“[How Big Things Get Done is] a book that every legislator, city council member and corporate executive ought to read.”—The Wall Street Journal

“This book is important, timely, instructive and entertaining. What more could you ask for?”
—Daniel Kahneman

“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

“This book distills the best scientific advice on planning big projects. And 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—and if you happen to be a CEO or head of state, the savings will quickly run into the billions.”
—Philip Tetlock, co-author of Superforecasting

“A wise, vivid, and unforgettable combination of inspiring storytelling with decades of practical research and experience. Everyone who deals with large projects is already desperate to read this book. The rest of us will take great pleasure in learning from it anyway.”
—Tim Harford

“Over-budget and over-schedule is an inevitability. Incompetence and grift is outrageous. Bent Flyvbjerg, with this terrific data-driven book, has shown that there is another way.”
—Frank GehryBENT FLYVBJERG is a professor at Oxford University, economist, and “the world’s leading megaproject expert,” according to the global accounting network KPMG. He has consulted on over one hundred projects costing $1 billion or more for the British, American, and Danish governments, the World Bank, and the United Nations, as well as Fortune 500 corporations, multi-national banks, and technology companies. His research has been covered by Science, The Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the BBC, and CBS News. Flyvbjerg has received numerious honors and awards and has been knighted by the Queen of Denmark. DAN GARDNER is a journalist and the New York Times best-selling author of Risk, Future Babble, and Superforecasting (with Philip E. Tetlock).
 US

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