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

Remember, plans always get more complicated once they're put into practice — never less.

New priorities emerge, market forces change, and everything takes longer than you expect. Your plan needs focus — likely more focus than you might feel comfortable with.

Flyvbjerg’s analyses are intended to guide the authorities that commission public projects, by providing the statistics of overruns in similar projects. Decision makers need a realistic assessment of the costs and benefits of a proposal before making the final decision to approve it. They may also wish to estimate the budget reserve that they need

Given a capable and intelligent person or group of people, errors rarely originate in the execution of a plan, though the plan itself may fail. Instead, errors occur in the principles underlying the development of the plan. Therefore, it's important to base a plan or a framework on the correct principles.