Introduction to This Book

The need to operate as a Whole Team and be aligned on the key objectives cannot be understated. Leadership direction, collaborative attitudes, and contract terms must all encourage participants at every level to always share the truth and do what is in the best interest of the project.

- Keith Sibley, Program Manager (former leadership roles on multiple mega-projects)

The goal of this book is to provide valuable lessons and best practices for policy makers, academics, students, scholars, urban planners, developers, architectural, engineering and construction professionals, project owners, sponsors and investors, non-profits, private industry, regulators, and government, environmental, energy, and transportation officials interested in infrastructure and urban and rural development. Better ways must be found to finance infrastructure projects, deliver economic and social benefits, and reduce the cost overruns, schedule delays, and catastrophic potential, and the overall cost of uncertainty, conflict and risk that plague so many global megaprojects.

Key Concepts and Objectives

This book provides an analysis of the difficulties in managing global megaprojects during each phase and throughout the life span of the project. Despite the huge volume of media articles, industry research, scholarly papers, and government analysis that has been published very little has been written about the day-to-day reality of managing these global projects from the perspectives of investors, lenders, government owners, project professionals and the ultimate beneficiaries of these projects. Global megaprojects have rarely been studied in depth for the lessons they offer in the management of megaproject complexity, uncertainty, and risk, particularly in interrelation to financial, economic, technical, legal, political, and social factors. Practicing professionals, policy makers, and students will find useful how these massive endeavors are conceived, developed, and implemented and how they manage to deliver benefits to society despite the trials and tribulations along the way. This book covers broadly the challenges of developing effective strategies and policies, improving project selection methodologies, overcoming emergence, uncertainty and complexity, finding opportunity and innovative solutions to impossible problems, and leading these global projects to long term success. The book offers illustrations and case studies from every corner of the globe to understand success factors, how to avoid project failure and how to create an innovative environment in which these projects can thrive.

The goal is to stimulate new ideas for future megaproject endeavors and to develop advanced thinking on how these projects can be better developed across companies, cultures and countries. The key themes in this book include: (i) selecting projects that have long term sustainability; (ii) building transparent frameworks; (iii) mobilizing capital and investment; (iv) integrating the project organization for more effective outcomes; (v) creating more resilient alliances and collaborative public private partnerships; (vi) building upon the United Nations sustainability goals in project planning and implementation; (vii) developing megaproject innovation and understanding the enablers and challenges to innovation; (viii) introducing blue ocean and blue economy strategies; (ix) reducing complexity and uncertainty and turning risk into opportunity; and (x) learning the lessons from the past and adapting them to the future to ensure more resilient projects that have the potential to develop an ecosystem of their own or become part of an existing ecosystem.

Pedagogy

In the last 50?years there has been a growing interest in Megaprojects the world over. Megaprojects bring together many disciplines and borrow from the fields of social science, psychology, biology, engineering, technology, energy, transportation, physics, politics, law, management, finance and economics to name a few. Megaprojects are finding answers to challenging problems such as medical treatments, water resourcing and disaster relief. Bent Flyvbjerg (2014 ) identifies the four "sublimes" - political, technological, economic, and aesthetic to explain the increased size and frequency of megaprojects.

There has been a call from the business, management, and project management communities for decades for more research on the history of project management. We need to learn from the past to do better in the future (Söderlund et al. 2017 ). Though there have been case studies on some of the larger industrial and engineering projects of our time there is a need for more studies to fill the gap of our understanding of best practices for megaprojects. Especially practices that seem to be critical for the success of projects and that are grounded on a contextual understanding of the particular project at hand such as planning techniques, coordination mechanisms, team structures, and interorganizational collaborations (Söderlund and Lenfle 2011 ).

As you will learn throughout this book megaproject theory assists policy makers, industry, project stakeholders including contractors, designers, engineers, and government in understanding better the challenges we face in selecting the right projects, implementing these large and complex endeavors and then ensuring that we deliver the benefits promised. Megaprojects can provide frameworks for structural decision making, strategy alignment, and investment choices that can be beneficial to all projects (Esty 2004 ). There is now a growing body of research on megaprojects that provides valuable insights that can be applied not only on megaprojects but provides valuable lessons for projects of all sizes large and small. The lessons learned will assist all those involved in the future challenges of megaproject management.

Since this book is designed to meet academic needs as well as the needs of professional practice, it is structured to provide pedagogical tools to enhance the learning experience.

Each chapter provides background on the major concepts as drawn from the extensive literature, from the major multilateral organizations, from the project sponsors, and most important from hundreds of interviews with many megaproject stakeholders and participants. Without the insights and extensive experience of policy makers, project managers, engineers, and contractors this book would not be possible.

Book Structure

This book contains 12 chapters. As described here, the chapters correspond to different aspects of global megaprojects from their initiation through implementation to transition to operations. Highlighted are the most important practices and each chapter explains how these practices and strategies can be implemented to achieve the approval of the project stakeholders and project management and, ultimately, to ensure project success.

Each chapter contains a similar framework and flow and includes the following elements:

1. Introduction: An overview of the topic covered and the goals of the chapter along with the role of the topic within the broader context of project and program management.
2. Concepts: An explanation of the fundamental elements that build upon the various disciplines and strategies, methodologies, and tools and techniques used in megaprojects generally. Relevant theoretical and empirical studies are highlighted in each chapter.
3. Summary: A review of the key points raised in the chapter.
4. Lessons learned: Highlights some of the most important lessons learned helping the reader understand how the concepts are applied in actual projects.
5. Best practices: Provides examples of strategies and tools and techniques to improve upon current practice.
6. Discussion questions: Discussion Questions incorporate case studies, critical thinking, and problem-solving exercises that afford students an opportunity to apply the concepts reviewed in each chapter.
7. References: References include a list of the author's research and the relevant literature on the chapter topic.

Overview of Book Chapters

Chapter 1 : Introduction to Global Megaprojects

The first chapter provides an introduction to global megaprojects and includes a timeline of these projects from prehistory through to the present-day Millennium Projects. This chapter explains why the study of megaprojects is important and how these projects have influenced our world history and built a better society. The primary goal of this chapter is to set forth a framework for understanding the goals and benefits of these projects, and analyzes what makes megaprojects unique and worthy of future analysis and research.

Chapter 2 : Megaproject Finance: Innovation and Value Driven Global Megaprojects

Chapter 2 covers the financing of global megaprojects from conception through project completion. It contrasts project finance with corporate finance and the advantages and disadvantages of each type of finance. It provides an overview of the challenges of infrastructure financing in the developing world, the United States and the European Union. The chapter explores the sources of funding, the legal framework, the major agreements and the role of the multilateral development banks and public private partnership structures. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of megaproject evaluation from both an ex-ante and...