Think slow, act fast: a summary of Bent Flyvberg and Dan Gardner’s book — How Big Things Get Done.
Do you want to excel at managing complex projects? Base your anchor in real world data!
On July 24, 2024, I participated in the inaugural book club hosted by ETH Alumni. There, the other participants and I reflected on our personal experiences and compared them to the challenges and solutions presented in the book. The book and discussions were so engaging that I felt compelled to create yet another summary.
The book is packed with examples and, more importantly, extensive data illustrating why big projects fail. It explores universal reasons for these failures and provides insights into projects that succeeded. It is a fascinating guide on how to avoid such failures.
To the problem:
Professor Bent Flyvbjerg compiled a dataset of more than 16,000 projects across over 20 different fields in 136 countries. As a professor of planning and management and a consultant, he studied the success (or failure) rates of these projects in depth and applied his findings in practice.
He observed that the track record for large and complex projects is troubling, to say the least. His research revealed significant cost overruns across various categories: buildings with a 62% mean cost…
