Quotes from Bent Flyvbjerg

Look for it in the world, and you'll see it everywhere. A brick wall is made of hundreds of bricks. A flock of starlings, which moves as if it were a unitary organism, may be composed of hundreds or thousands of birds. Even our bodies are modular, composed of trillions of cells that are themselves modular. There's an evolutionary reason for this ubiquity: In survival of the fittest, the "fittest" is often a module that is particularly successful in reproducing itself.

and experience. Think of how people typically learn: We tinker. We try this. We try that. We see what works and what doesn't. We iterate. We learn. This is experimentation creating experience.

Think of how people typically learn: We tinker. We try this. We try that. We see what works and what doesn't. We iterate. We learn. This is experimentation creating experience.

As the old Latin saying goes, "Repetitio est mater studiorum"—"Repetition is the mother of learning." A good plan is one that meticulously applies experimentation or experience. A great plan is one that rigorously applies both.

To go back to where I started in the previous chapter: When planning, remember the Latin word experiri, the origin of the English words experiment and experience. Whenever possible, planning should maximize experience, both frozen and unfrozen.

A good plan, as I said, is one that maximizes experience or experimentation; a great plan is one that does both. And the best plan? That's one that maximizes experience and experimentation—and is drafted and delivered by a project leader and team with phronesis.

Scale and speed"; those are the key words. To win the fight against climate change, we must build at a scale and speed that put to shame the long, sorry record of the giant projects of the past. We can no longer afford bloated budgets and deadlines that keep sliding into the future. And we absolutely cannot have projects that never deliver what they promise.

We would add to this that regarding cost overruns there is no indication that the calamity identified by the Major Projects Association is limited to the public sector. Private sector cost overruns are also common.

Heuristics are fast and frugal rules of thumb used to simplify complex decisions. The word has its origin in the ancient Greek word Eureka!, the cry of joy and satisfaction when one finds or discovers something.

HIRE A MASTERBUILDER I sometimes say that this is my only heuristic because the masterbuilder—named after the skilled masons who built Europe's medieval cathedrals—possesses all the phronesis needed to make your project happen. You want someone with deep domain experience and a proven track record of success in whatever you're doing

GET YOUR TEAM RIGHT This is the only heuristic cited by every project leader I've ever met.

But who should pick the team? Ideally, that's the job of a masterbuilder. In fact, it's the masterbuilder's main job. This is why the role of masterbuilder is not as solitary as it sounds; projects are delivered by teams. So to amend my advice above: When possible, hire a masterbuilder. And the masterbuilder's team.