How Big Things Get Done

The Surprising Factors Behind Every Successful Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration

By: Bent Flyvbjerg, Dan Gardner

Narrated by: Rob Shapiro

Best Books of the Year – The Financial Times and The Economist
Shortlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year

‘Important, timely, instructive and entertaining’ – Daniel Kahneman, bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

Megaproject expert Bent Flyvbjerg and bestselling author Dan Gardner reveal the secrets to successfully planning and delivering ambitious projects on any scale.

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 Pixar blockbusters, How Big Things Get Done reveals how to get any ambitious project done – on time and on budget.

'Entertaining . . . compelling . . . there are lessons here for managers of all stripes' – The Economist
'My only complaint about this book is that it wasn’t written earlier' – Ola Rosling, bestselling co-author of Factfulness

Critic reviews

Important, timely, instructive and entertaining. What more could you ask for? (Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow)

A wise, vivid, and unforgettable combination of inspiring storytelling with decades of practical research and experience. (Tim Harford, bestselling author of How to Make the World Add Up)

Entertaining . . . compelling . . . there are lessons here for managers of all stripes'

Full of delicious anecdotes about project management disasters . . . Flyvbjerg and co-author Gardner succeed in extracting valuable lessons from these failures – and some occasional successes (Financial Times, 'FT business books: What to read this month')

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, Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, and author of The Black Swan)

My only complaint about this book is that it wasn’t written earlier. It distills decades of systematic research from thousands of projects. The result is a crystal-clear pattern of surprising reasons why almost all big human projects fail to deliver as expected (Ola Rosling, bestselling co-author of Factfulness)

The best scientific advice on project planning. 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. (Philip Tetlock, bestselling co-author of Superforecasting)

A truly fascinating read. There’s a practical pay-off, too: a toolbox with eleven smart heuristics for better project leadership that every planner should know. (Gerd Gigerenzer, author of Gut Feelings)

would recommend

Amazing book for anyone planning or directing large projects. Interesting insights which came with some unexpected conclusions. I feel like the climate-focused ending could've been omitted as it was not important to the observations and lessons presented in this book. Either way, well done to the authors, can only recommend.

Very useful insights

Lived the multiple examples, lived the modular approach. Felt experience is key, not use untested capabilities, first movers are riskier so go small, test & learn and apply modularity. Lots of small things make big things

Great lesson in project management

Very interesting and accessible book, exploring the factors that make projects a success or failure. Backed with statistics and anecdotes. Clearly and calmly read.

Rob Shapiro is the king of the mic

The book is amazing, and Rob have an engaging and smooth narration that kept me interested!

A classic

Well packaged narrative around some helpfully empirical observations. Definitely worth a read for anyone involved in major (or any) projects.