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One-Page Summary
Introduction
Building big, ambitious projects is inherently challenging. Many such projects, from California's High-Speed Rail to nuclear power plants, often end up over budget, behind schedule, and fail to deliver expected benefits. However, a few rare projects, like the Empire State Building and the Hoover Dam, manage to achieve resounding success. What sets these projects apart? How Big Things Get Done explores the surprising factors behind every successful project, revealing valuable lessons for leaders across all fields.
Part I: Think Slow, Act Fast
Successful projects follow a "think slow, act fast" approach, investing ample time in meticulous planning to enable swift execution. This minimizes the "window of vulnerability" during which unexpected events can derail progress. Conversely, failed projects often "think fast, act slow," rushing into ill-conceived plans that bog down once underway.
Part II: Key Principles for Project Success
Start with the end in mind: Clearly define your objective and work backwards to determine the best path forward.
Plan like Pixar: Embrace experimentation, iteration, and rigorous testing to refine your plan before committing resources.
Leverage experience: Prioritize proven technologies and experienced teams to reduce risk and boost efficiency.
Adopt an outside view: Avoid "uniqueness bias" by comparing your project to similar past endeavors and learning from their outcomes.
Cut the tail: Identify and mitigate low-probability, high-consequence events that can lead to devastating overruns.
Unify your team: Align everyone around a shared mission and empower them to communicate openly.
Modularize: Break your project into manageable, repeatable components to accelerate progress and reduce risk.
Conclusion
Armed with these principles, project leaders can vastly improve their odds of success, whether constructing skyscrapers or rolling out software. While challenges will always arise, the practices outlined in this book provide a robust toolkit for delivering big things on time, on budget, and to specification. Mastering these techniques is essential for executing the ambitious projects our world needs, from mitigating climate change to advancing human progress.
Detailed Summary
Introduction: California Dreamin'
Turning a grand vision into a successful reality is no easy feat. California's ambitious high-speed rail project, approved by voters in 2008, promised to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in just 2.5 hours at an estimated cost of $33 billion. Yet, over a decade later, the project remains unfinished, mired in delays and cost overruns that have pushed the price tag to $100 billion or more.
In contrast, the Nepal school project, which aimed to build 20,000 schools and classrooms across the nation, finished on budget and eight years ahead of schedule, despite the challenges of working in remote, impoverished areas. This stark contrast raises a crucial question: How do visions become plans that deliver successful projects?
Drawing on decades of research and a database of over 16,000 projects spanning multiple fields and continents, How Big Things Get Done explores the key factors that distinguish triumphant projects from those that fail to launch or arrive vastly over budget and behind schedule. The authors argue that successful projects follow a "think slow, act fast" approach, investing ample time upfront in meticulous planning to enable swift, efficient execution. By thinking slow, project leaders can anticipate and mitigate potential obstacles, ensuring a smooth delivery once the actual work begins.
This book delves into the psychological biases and political pressures that often lead decision-makers astray, the critical importance of drawing on past experience and maintaining a clear-eyed view of project risks, and the power of modular design in enabling projects to scale up rapidly. Through a wealth of case studies and practical insights, Flyvbjerg and Gardner provide a comprehensive guide to executing big projects successfully, offering valuable lessons for leaders across all fields.
Chapter 1: Think Slow, Act Fast
The record of big projects is even worse than it seems. An analysis of over 16,000 projects reveals that a mere 0.5% are delivered on budget, on time, and with the promised benefits. The vast majority suffer from cost overruns, delays, and benefit shortfalls.
A key reason for this dismal track record is that most projects follow a "think fast, act slow" approach. Driven by optimism bias and political pressures, leaders rush into projects with superficial plans, only to encounter a spiral of setbacks and delays once work begins. This "break-fix cycle" can drag on indefinitely, as teams scramble to address unforeseen problems that could have been anticipated and mitigated with proper planning.
Successful projects, in contrast, follow a "think slow, act fast" approach. They invest heavily in meticulous planning upfront, developing detailed, thoroughly tested plans that provide a reliable roadmap for swift execution. This approach minimizes the "window of vulnerability" during which projects are exposed to unforeseen events that can blow budgets and timelines.
A prime example is the Empire State Building, completed in just 410 days and under budget in 1931. The key to its success lay in the architects' painstaking planning, which included creating a complete digital replica of the building that specified every beam, rivet, and pane of glass before construction began. This enabled the team to execute the project with unparalleled speed and efficiency, assembling components like a vertical factory line.
The lesson is clear: Take the time to plan properly, and delivery will be smooth and swift. Rush in, and you're likely to get stuck in the tar pit of delays and overruns.
Chapter 2: The Commitment Fallacy
Given the clear benefits of thinking slow, why do so many projects do the opposite? The answer lies in what the authors call the "commitment fallacy" - our tendency to lock into decisions prematurely, without considering alternatives or potential pitfalls.
This bias is rooted in both psychology and politics. Psychologically, we're prone to WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is) thinking, assuming we have all the information needed to make a decision when, in reality, we're only seeing a narrow slice. Politically, there are often strong incentives to lowball cost estimates and downplay risks in order to get projects approved and underway.
A striking example is the Pentagon, which was originally planned to be built on a site that would have ruined the view from Arlington National Cemetery. This obvious flaw was overlooked in the rush to get approval, and construction began within a week of the first sketches. Only after critics raised an outcry was the project moved to its current, less obtrusive location.
To avoid this fallacy, project leaders must commit to not committing - to keeping an open mind, considering alternatives, and pressure-testing plans before locking in. This requires resisting both our psychological biases and the political pressures to simply get moving.
Chapter 3: Think from Right to Left
A key habit of successful project leaders is thinking from right to left - starting with the end goal in mind and working backwards to determine the best path to get there.
Too often, projects begin by jumping straight to a solution - "we need to build a bridge" - without first clarifying the underlying objectives. By asking "why" and exploring alternatives, leaders can surface creative options that may be cheaper, faster, and more effective than the initial plan.
When Frank Gehry was approached to design the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, he began by asking a simple question: Why are you doing this project? Upon learning that the goal was to create an iconic building that would attract tourists and revitalize the economy, Gehry proposed scrapping the original plan to renovate an existing warehouse. Instead, he suggested constructing a dramatic new museum on a prime riverfront site - an approach that ultimately proved wildly successful in putting Bilbao on the global cultural map.
Defining your "box on the right" - the clear, specific end goal of your project - and relentlessly questioning how best to get there is essential for keeping projects on track and avoiding costly detours.
Chatper 4: Pixar Planning
People are terrible at getting things right the first time, but great at tinkering and iterating. The most successful projects leverage this human strength by embracing a highly iterative planning process, exemplified by Pixar's approach to developing animated films.
At Pixar, movies often go through eight or more major iterations before release. Each version is turned into a crude mock-up video, complete with storyboards and draft dialogue, that is screened for the creative team and test audiences. Feedback from these showings is then used to refine the script, storyboards, and designs in the next iteration.
This process enables Pixar to experiment with bold ideas while identifying and correcting flaws early when changes are relatively cheap. By the time a movie enters the costly production phase, the story and visual elements have been thoroughly road-tested, greatly reducing the risk of expensive rework.
This "try, learn, refine" approach is valuable for all types of projects. The key is investing in cheap, low-fidelity prototypes - whether physical models, crude simulations, or minimum viable products - that allow you to pressure-test your plan and make improvements before committing significant resources. Pixar-style planning takes time, but it's a powerful way to reduce risk and improve outcomes.
Chapter 5: Are You Experienced?
Experience is invaluable in project planning and delivery, yet it is often overlooked or marginalized in the pursuit of lowest bids or splashy "world-first" endeavors. Drawing on proven technologies, designs, and teams that have delivered success in the past is one of the surest ways to reduce risk and improve efficiency.
Consider the cautionary tale of the Sydney Opera House. When the project was awarded to the relatively inexperienced architect Jørn Utzon, based on his daring but underdeveloped designs, the result was a planning and construction fiasco. Costs ballooned to over 1,400% of the initial estimate, and Utzon was ultimately forced off the project in disgrace, his career in ruins.
In contrast, Frank Gehry's successful delivery of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao was underpinned by decades of hard-won experience, including lessons from the troubled construction of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Gehry relied on proven partners, technologies, and processes, such as the cutting-edge CATIA design software, to bring his vision to life on time and on budget.
At a broader level, the most reliable projects tend to be highly modular endeavors that leverage standard, off-the-shelf components and designs. Wind and solar power projects consistently outperform more bespoke efforts like nuclear plants, thanks to their use of prefabricated, mass-produced modules that enable constant improvement through experience.
Tapping into hard-earned experience - both in the form of battle-tested people and technologies - is essential for delivering projects predictably and efficiently.
Chapter 6: So You Think Your Project Is Unique?
Project leaders often fall victim to "uniqueness bias," convincing themselves that their project is so singular that it has nothing to learn from comparable past efforts. This mindset leads them to ignore valuable lessons and consistently underestimate costs and risks.
The antidote is reference class forecasting (RCF) - a method that involves identifying a relevant set of similar past projects, analyzing their outcomes, and using that data to inform your own project's estimates and plans.
The process is straightforward: Define your reference class (e.g., "kitchen renovations"), collect data on the actual costs and durations of a representative sample of projects in that class, and use the average as a baseline for your own estimates, adjusting up or down only if there are clear, compelling reasons to expect your project to differ substantially from the norm.
RCF consistently outperforms conventional "inside view" forecasting, which relies on analyzing the specifics of the project at hand while ignoring broader historical data. Applying RCF can help project leaders overcome their optimistic biases and make more realistic forecasts, increasing the odds of on-time, on-budget delivery.
Importantly, RCF also provides a way to quantify and mitigate the "black swan" risks that can cause projects to go dramatically awry. By studying the tail end of the distribution - the small number of projects in the reference class that suffered extreme overruns - leaders can identify the root causes of disaster and take steps to prevent them, such as locking in steel prices early to avoid crippling increases or hiring all available archaeologists to prevent cascading delays from unexpected excavations.
While no technique can eliminate risk entirely, RCF provides a powerful tool for grounding our plans in hard data and ensuring we aren't blindsided by foreseeable overruns.
Chapter 7: Can Ignorance Be Your Friend?
Some argue that too much planning stifles creativity - that project leaders need to take a leap of faith, trust their instincts, and adapt on the fly. Proponents point to success stories like the making of the film Jaws, where a mechanical shark malfunction forced director Steven Spielberg to improvise a far scarier, mostly unseen menace that made the movie a blockbuster.
While such stories are inspiring, they are the rare exception rather than the rule. The data is clear: Projects with minimal planning are far more likely to go over budget, fall behind schedule, and fail to deliver promised benefits compared to their well-planned counterparts.
A study of over 2,000 large infrastructure projects found that the typical poorly planned project suffered cost overruns and benefit shortfalls, while only 20% saw overruns exceeded by even larger benefit gains - the happy scenario predicted by "ignorance is bliss" advocates. When the costs of failure are tallied - money wasted, reputations ruined, opportunities lost - it's clear that leaping blindly into the unknown is a losing bet.
Jaws was a huge success, but director Cimino's subsequent project, Heaven's Gate, was an unmitigated disaster that sank an entire studio after he insisted on "creative freedom" from budgets and schedules. Spielberg himself nearly suffered a nervous breakdown from the stress of winging it.
Conversely, the most reliable projects, from the Empire State Building to Pixar's string of blockbusters, are meticulous planned endeavors that leave little to chance. Creativity doesn't require flying blind - it thrives within the boundaries of a well-crafted plan that enables experimentation and improvisation without betting the farm.
Chapter 8: A Single, Determined Organism
Even the best-laid plans are useless without a strong, united team to carry them out. Turning a diverse array of contractors, partners, and stakeholders into a cohesive unit is one of the most critical challenges of project leadership.
The construction of Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 illustrates how a shared sense of mission and carefully aligned incentives can transform a sprawling project team into a "single, determined organism." At the outset, the British Airports Authority (BAA) set a bold goal of delivering T5 on time and on budget - a rarity for large infrastructure projects.
To achieve this, BAA implemented a novel contract structure that tied everyone's profits to the overall success of the project rather than their individual pieces. This encouraged cooperation and problem-solving rather than finger-pointing and jockeying for position.
BAA also invested heavily in fostering a "one team" ethos, with posters and messaging emphasizing that everyone - from managers to construction workers - was part of the T5 team first and foremost, rather than their individual companies. By creating a shared identity and rallying everyone around the common goal of "making history," BAA unlocked a level of collaboration and motivation that propelled the project swiftly forward.
This unity stood in stark contrast to the infighting and recrimination that plagued London's Wembley Stadium project, which finished years late and hundreds of millions over budget.
Aligning incentives, forging a collective identity, and constantly communicating the project's mission are powerful ways to galvanize a team and keep everyone pulling in the same direction, toward on-time, on-budget delivery.
Chapter 9: What's Your Lego?
Modularity - building big things from small, standardized components - is one of the most promising strategies for delivering projects faster, cheaper, and more reliably.
Consider the remarkable rise of wind and solar power. Unlike bespoke nuclear plants that take decades to build and often suffer dramatic cost overruns, wind and solar farms are assembled from standard, mass-produced modules - turbines and panels - that can be rapidly deployed and scaled up as needed. This "Lego block" approach has fueled an exponential increase in renewable generation, with wind and solar consistently outperforming their conventional counterparts on cost and schedule.
Modularity enables projects to benefit from economies of scale, both in production (cheaper, faster manufacturing) and deployment (highly efficient assembly that facilitates learning and improvement with each iteration). It reduces risk by allowing problems to be isolated and fixed without derailing the entire endeavor. And it facilitates adaptation, as designs can be modified incrementally in response to changing needs or conditions.
The power of modularity extends far beyond energy projects. From skyscrapers assembled from prefabricated rooms to "small modular reactors" that could make nuclear power more nimble, the potential to transform how we build is immense.
Identifying the right "Lego block" for your project - whether it's a standardized component, a repeatable process, or a scalable design - can unlock a new level of speed, efficiency, and adaptability. In a world of increasing complexity and uncertainty, this kind of modular thinking is becoming an essential tool for delivering big things.
Coda: Eleven Heuristics for Better Project Leadership
The book concludes with eleven practical rules of thumb for leading successful projects:
Hire a maestro: Find an experienced leader with a track record of delivering similar projects.
Pick your team carefully: Get the right people in the right roles.
Ask "Why?": Clarify your ultimate objectives and explore alternative paths to get there.
Use "Lego blocks": Leverage standardized, modular components and designs wherever possible.
Take the outside view: Use reference class forecasting to base your plans on relevant historical data.
Watch your six: Identify and mitigate low-probability, high-impact risks that can derail your project.
Be a broken record: Constantly communicate your project's mission and values.
Make friends and keep them: Build relationships with key stakeholders before you need their help.
Think "Lego blocks": Break your project into manageable, repeatable modules.
Don't be fooled by "This time is different": Resist the temptation to ignore relevant experience.
Remember, your biggest risk is you: Be aware of your own biases and blind spots.
Nice in-depth summary!
Since I find that How Big Things Get Done is not a practical book and it’s main aim is not to help you improve your personal productivity I also wrote about it on my Substack. I took the book's central ideas and explored how we can apply them in our personal life.
Best
Dennis