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

Author Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner

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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%…

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February 7, 2023

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Dan Gardner is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and consultant. His three books on psychology and decision-making—published in 25 countries and 19 languages—have been praised by everyone from The Economist to Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. Prior to becoming an author, Gardner was a newspaper columnist, talking head, and investigative journalist who won or was nominated for every major award in Canadian newspaper journalism. He is an honorary senior fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public Policy and International Affairs and lives in Ottawa, Canada.

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How Big Things Get Done

Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner

Bent Flyvbjerg is the first BT Professor at Oxford University and the VKR Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, an economist, and “the world’s leading megaproject expert,” according to global accounting network KPMG. He has consulted on over one hundred projects costing $1 billion or more and has been knighted by the Queen of Denmark.