Book Titles

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

By Bent Flyvbjerg, Dan Gardner

Year Published: 2023
ISBN-13: 978-0593239513
Categories: Failure, Management, Projects

75 Quotes Found

Quote Image Quote Page Number

How Big Things Get Done:

Small is good. For one thing, small projects can be simple.

161

How Big Things Get Done:

…when delivery takes decades, the unpredictable becomes inevitable.

161

How Big Things Get Done:

Modularity is a clunky word for the elegant idea of big thing made from small things.

162

How Big Things Get Done:

If you want to start an avalanche big enough to change the world, government may have to help push the first boulder.

183

How Big Things Get Done:

That’s the model we need: ‘many small things’ manufactured at scale and assembled like Lego, click, click, click.

184

How Big Things Get Done:

When small can scale up and become huge fast, small experiments have huge potential.

184

How Big Things Get Done:

Heuristics are fast and frugal rules of thumb used to simplify complex decisions.

185

How Big Things Get Done:

Heuristics are often tacit and need to be deliberately teased out before they can be shared verbally.

185

How Big Things Get Done:

Almost any nightmare you can imagine can happen – and has happened – during delivery.

187

How Big Things Get Done:

…forget about forecasting risk; go directly to mitigation by spotting and eliminating dangers.

188