“How Big Things Get Done” Book Review – Part 2, The Success
Lessons from Success: How Big Things Get Done
Unveiling the patterns of successful mega-projects and the power of focused execution.
The Paradox of Success: Learning from Failure First
The road to success is often paved with lessons learned from failure. True success, which consistently creates value and benefits, is a rare achievement, as highlighted in the initial part of this review. That’s precisely why the first segment of the book “How Big Things Get Done” deliberately focuses on failure before delving into success. Learning from the failures of others is a powerful precursor to learning from one’s own. The case studies presented offer invaluable positive learning experiences.
The book meticulously examines numerous successful mega, medium, and small projects to understand how project teams managed to deliver within budget, on time, and with tangible benefits. While successful cases are admittedly fewer than failed projects, most share a discernible pattern and model that can be emulated.
This pattern begins with an unwavering focus on the ultimate target of the project – its core vision. When an idea is developed, most visionaries establish it with clear parameters around cost and time. While they may have numerous goals, there is typically one primary objective around which the entire vision is centered. Other goals, while potentially offering additional value, can sometimes prove disruptive.
Driving Towards the Ultimate Vision: The Power of Singular Focus
Consider this like driving from point A to point B. Point B represents the ultimate destination – your primary target. You meticulously plan the means to reach it, factoring in time and budget. However, it’s crucial to assess whether any delays caused by detours to explore interesting sights along the way are truly affordable, while still ensuring the primary objective is delivered.
Therefore, when secondary goals and disruptive factors emerge, maintaining focus is paramount. It’s essential to constantly ask: “Why are we doing this project?” and “Will these extra goals delay our primary objective?” When project leadership fully comprehends and commits to this single, overarching goal, it ultimately defines success. This is the profound lesson taught by the Madrid Metro, an exemplary success story in delivering a rail network – a type of project notoriously known for delays and budget overruns. The leadership team behind this project demonstrated an unwavering focus on its main purpose, delivering the project at half the budget and double the speed.
Case Study: The Madrid Metro – A Blueprint for Rapid, Cost-Effective Expansion
The Madrid Metro project, initiated in 1995, was completed in two remarkable stages, each lasting only four years. The first stage involved constructing 56 kilometers with 37 stations, followed by a second stage that extended the line by a further 75 kilometers with 39 stations. This extraordinary feat was achieved through a radically innovative approach to tunneling and typical station building design, resulting in impressive efficiency.
Strategic Decisions for Success:
Intelligent Underground Design
Designed an intelligent approach to adopt underground rail using tunneling, avoiding land acquisition problems and environmental issues, saving significant time.
Proven Technology Focus
Used only proven technology, deliberately avoiding new, untested products to minimize risks and ensure reliability.
Simple, Functional Station Designs
Created simple, functional station designs best suited for their purpose, prioritizing utility over signature architecture.
Parallel Workstreams & Team Exchange
Planned to work with multiple gangs simultaneously for certain kilometers, allowing different teams to deliver concurrently and fostering positive learning and experience exchange.
Effective Community Engagement
Managed the community effectively by setting up a feedback system to avoid time-consuming disputes and convinced communities to accept 24/7 tunneling by highlighting the benefits of faster completion.
Minimizing Time Window Risk
By working at such speed, they eliminated the risk of a large time window, which typically allows more risks (e.g., COVID-19, geopolitical events, new technology disruption, market competition) to enter the project, increasing cost and delays.
These decisions were fundamentally aimed at eliminating risks, a sensible approach in any project. The Madrid Metro leadership adopted a “no monuments, no innovation, modular, and fast” approach, which might sound like a recipe for a boring, low-quality design. However, the Madrid Metro is a true workhorse, with large, functional, and airy stations and trains, transporting millions of passengers, day in and day out, year after year, exactly as planned.
Case Study: Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5) – A Masterclass in Complex Project Delivery
The Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5) project stands as another remarkable success story in project leadership. Its main building is the largest freestanding structure in the United Kingdom. With the addition of two more buildings, T5 boasts fifty-three gates and a footprint of 3.8 million square feet, built at a cost of £4.3 billion. To ensure smooth operations, T5 required a vast array of additional systems, including tunnels, roads, parking facilities, rail connections, stations, electronic systems, baggage handling, catering, safety systems, and a new air traffic control tower for the entire airport. All of this was constructed between two active runways, with the existing central terminal area at one end and a busy freeway at the other. The airport could not shut down during construction, making the project exceptionally challenging.
Construction began in 2002, with an ambitious planned opening date of March 30, 2008, at 4:00 am. The planning process alone had taken 19 years, and project leaders were confident in their ability to meet their target by the hour – which they successfully did. Despite the immense challenges, the project was completed on time and on budget, largely attributable to effective project leadership and a set of critical success factors:
1. Data-Driven Planning & Risk Visualization
Leaders utilized forecasting models that starkly illustrated the potential for BAA’s collapse if the project deviated from its planned 6.5-year delivery time and budget. This critical thinking and clear visualization of negative impacts served as a constant reminder to every team member about the paramount importance of adhering to deadlines.
2. Visual Planning System
The implementation of a comprehensive visual planning system allowed for the visualization of every single activity, including off-site material manufacturing and just-in-time delivery. This precision in planning and logistics was instrumental in keeping the project on schedule and within budget.
3. Culture of Openness & Best Practices
A new culture was fostered that actively encouraged people to seek, capture, and exploit best practices, remove barriers to innovation, motivate good ideas, and leverage commercial incentives for exceptional performance. Workers were empowered to voice concerns (e.g., safety) and suggest improvements, fostering a highly collaborative and productive environment.
4. Innovative Procurement & “One Team” Approach
The procurement and contracting strategy, particularly the cost-plus contract with a fixed fee, promoted a partnering approach. This fostered trust and cooperation among over 60 contractors, 16 major projects, and nearly 150 sub-projects. The “one team” philosophy, where risks and successes were shared, instilled a strong sense of belonging and commitment, ensuring everyone was aligned with T5’s timely completion.
This approach provided companies with positive incentives, such as bonuses for meeting and exceeding benchmarks, ensuring that the interests of the different companies were aligned towards T5’s on-time completion. Disputes were addressed immediately and collaboratively, preventing delays and fostering a shared sense of purpose.
Overarching Lessons: Avoiding the Uniqueness Trap
The two cases above provide profound insights into designing early strategic approaches for project success. These strategies can be applied to all strategic projects or selectively, with careful management of associated risks. The book distills success factors into actionable approaches that engineering and construction (E&C) firms can translate into processes and strategic decisions during the initiation stage.
One of the most important lessons learned from these success models is to **avoid the uniqueness trap**. This trap, often a pursuit of groundbreaking originality, frequently attracts more risks. While over 92% of mega-projects face budget overruns and significant delays, with questionable benefit delivery (some even failing completely due to the “uniqueness dream”), there are rare exceptions. The Sydney Opera House, along with two NASA projects, serves as a singular example where initial significant cost overruns and delays eventually yielded a hidden success gem decades later, transforming a clear lost business case into an iconic triumph. However, such instances are anomalies, not the rule.
Remember, the ultimate goal drives your vision. Is it strictly time-bound? Is it your sole investment, where failure to deliver profit upon completion means bankruptcy? Visionary projects with a defined timeframe (like the Olympic Games) are typically deemed failures if they don’t deliver as promised by that time.
Try applying these principles to your existing and upcoming mega-projects. Analyze the risks surrounding your strategic decisions through this lens.
A Credible Call to Action: Saving Trillions
In conclusion, “How Big Things Get Done” opens a crucial and fair discussion about mega-project spending and the immense opportunity to save trillions of dollars. Yes, the book suggests that rigorously following its proposed models for success could indeed save trillions. This is a statement of full credibility, coming from an academic researcher who would not write anything without supporting data. If I were a government in Europe, I would fund him to apply his model to their projects.
Finally, if you haven’t read the book yet, I highly recommend it. It will save you billions. Thanks to Prof. Bent Flyvbjerg for this valuable book and thanks to all his team.
Best wishes,
Engr, Ziad Albasir