**How Big Things Get Done** by Bent Flyvbjerg, a leading expert on megaprojects, and Dan Gardner, a best selling author, delves into why so many projects fail while some succeed. While Bent's specialty is megaprojects, the size of the "big things" is relative as demonstrated by home renovations examples presented in the book.

My biggest takeaway from the **How Big Things Get Done** is that plans matter. This is because projects really only run into trouble during the execution phase. During the planning phase, it is hard for a project to experience cost overruns or delays, but the longer that the execution phase lasts, the more likely it is that something will go wrong, especially some black swan event that is totally unpredictable. This is related to Jeff Bezo's rule for decision making that says that "two way door" decisions which are easily reversible should be made quickly, while "one way door" decisions, which are large, consequential and hard to reverse, should be carefully studied and made deliberately. During the planning phase, all decisions are two way door because nothing is actually being executed yet, so the plan can still change. But during the execution phase, a lot more decisions are one way door, because resources are being committed and work being carried out. If you start digging a hole in the wrong place, you might be able fill it back up and start digging in the correct place, but you will have wasted time and money. If however you take the time during the planning phase to figure out where that hole should go, you will avoid making the mistake in the first place.

I found this emphasis on plans particularly interesting  because I just finished Caro's biography of Robert Moses :"The Power Broker". In "The Power Broker", Caro says that one of the reasons that Moses was able to obtain a disproportionate  share of federal infrastructure funding was that Moses always had concrete plans and blueprints for his projects available, while other people who wanted the money only had vague proposals and ideas. This isn't directly related to the rationale for planning made in **How Big Things Get Done**, but it also goes to show the importance of planning.

Other points that I found interesting:
- When forecasting how long a project will take or cost, rather than trying to estimate from the bottom up by calculating the individual, specific steps and components, should pick a reference class of similar projects and use the average cost and time for this set of projects as a starting point, making adjustments as appropriate. For example, with a kitchen renovation, rather than  starting out by costing out all the material and labor for what you want to do with your specific kitchen, ask friends and family how much their kitchen renovations cost. This way unforeseen expenses will be included in your forecasts, because you are basing your estimates on actual completed projects in which unforeseen expenses might have occurred. 
- Try for modularity whenever embarking on a project. This means that not only can the project start delivering benefits when the first part is completed, you gain valuable experience as you repeatedly complete similar parts of the project. Modularity is why wind power projects rarely experience cost overruns and delays compared to big nuclear power projects.
- Experience matters when taking on a project. Don't think that someone's experience from a different domain can easily transfer, or that someone can easily get up to speed by learning through books or other theoretical sources. This is because there are many parts of practical experience that cannot be communicate or even explicitly understood. It's a bit like riding a bike; the only way to get good a leading a particular kind of project is to do it. As a result, whenever possible you should hire a 'master builder' and his team. This part of the book reminds me of Robert Moses again, because Robert Moses was often described as a master builder and had a team he would use across many projects.
- Finally, the book encourages us to ask about the objective. Before we start any project, we need to be clear about what we are trying to achieve. This will help us to make sure that our plans are aligned with our goals. Its an standard in business analysis: before focusing on a specific solution, you should figure out what the problem or broader end state is, then use this to inform your planning and figure out what you will actually deliver. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was an easy read. As I said, the biggest takeaway for me was the importance of planning. I used to think that planning was a waste of time and just got in the way of doing, especially since my experience with government projects is that most plans for projects end up being out of date right away, no matter how much time and detail went into the plan before hand. But now I realize that good planning, which involves experimentation, obtaining experience and figuring out the right goal is essential, while my skepticism of bad planning, which is rigid, overly detailed in the wrong areas and vague in the important ones, was well founded.