How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg receives impressive media coverage all over the world

Bent Flyvbjerg, Professor at IT-University of Copenhagen and University of Oxford, has recently had his book How Big Things Get Done published. The book has received a spectacular welcome and a massive press coverage worldwide.

Written March 24, 2023 8:39 AM by Ditte Ørsted Johansen

During Bent Flyvbjerg’s long career he has specialized in so-called mega-projects – a phenomena that covers everything from enormous IT-projects to skyscrapers, railroads, and bridges. In How Big Things Get Done, which he wrote in collaboration with the award-winning journalist, Dan Gardner, Bent Flyvbjerg reveals the secrets behind successfully planned constructions, and he points his scientific spotlight on the reasons behind failures and fiascoes in construction projects.

The groundwork of the book is a database with more than 16.000 mega-projects from 136 countries, which Bent Flyvbjerg has developed in collaboration with peers. The Professor uses the huge quantity of data to narrate detailed anecdotes about how the original design of the opera house in Sydney turned out to be an unattainable project; how Pixar succeeded in making 20+ blockbuster hits in a row; why the foundation collapsed underneath Brandenburg Airport in Berlin; and why the 1976 Olympic stadium in Montreal is known as “The Big Owe”.

Mega-projects receive mega attention

How Big Things Get Done has made headlines all over the world. You can read about Bent Flyvbjergs mega-projects in The Times of India, Independent Australia and Le Nouvel Economiste just to name a few.

on the American and English news websites Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Financial Times, are several columns dedicated to Bent Flyvbjergs expertise on how to avoid that construction visions become construction nightmares.

”Entertaining . . . compelling . . . there are lessons here for managers of all stripes” (The Economist, 16. Marts, 2023).

”Ever since the 2003 publication of the academic work Megaprojects and Risk, Danish economic geographer Bent Flyvbjerg has been the world’s leading authority on why this happens and how to prevent it” (Washington Post, February 11^th 2023).

“It’s a book that every legislator, city council member and corporate executive ought to read” (Wall Street Journal, February 6^th 2023).

“Flyvbjerg and co-author Gardner succeed in extracting valuable lessons (…) and Flyvbjerg shows that such tips apply as much to overambitious homeowners as to megalomaniac bridge-builders” (Financial Times, February 9^th 2023).

How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg receives impressive media coverage all over the world

Bent Flyvbjerg, Professor at IT-University of Copenhagen and University of Oxford, has recently had his book How Big Things Get Done published. The book has received a spectacular welcome and a massive press coverage worldwide.

Mega-projects receive mega attention

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