How relevant is that literature on “megaprojects”? As far as I can tell it seems mostly focused on infrastructure—e.g. construction of big dams, bridges, and so on. Those projects seem very different from the kinds of projects that Ben and Will talk about. (Plus the latter have a smaller size, as mentioned.)
I don’t think the term “megaproject” is misleading or confusing, though others may disagree. The fact that Flyvbjerg and others have used it in one sense doesn’t necessarily mean we can’t use it in another sense.
I appreciate Ozzie flagging this, since a nontrivial fraction of the costs of my proposed idea (shelters) would in fact be construction costs for a fairly difficult/novel thing (eg construct an underground shelter for >100 people with BSL IV entry requirements, enough food, fuel and technical sophistication to support >100 people + >5000 frozen fertilized embryos for >30 years), so even if the objection is not applicable to the other project ideas, it should be applicable to mine.
The megaprojects literature does use it in those ways. I haven’t found that much discussion on what exactly Ben and Will do talk about, I just found a few tweets.
I’m fine with people defining megaproject in a different sense; but if so, I think it should be defined. In this case, it’s not clear to me what their definition is exactly.
My impression is that the commonality of megaproject failure is more “a really big project, with often a bunch of stakeholders, and is difficult to incrementally develop”, more so than being about bridges/dams in particular. Many huge software projects fit similar patterns and have had similar fates. Many large technocratic initiatives also had a lot of problems.
If you take out software, hardware, and technocratic initiatives, I’m not sure why kinds of projects there are that could make it to the $100Mil mark.
Honestly, many of the projects in the thread are more susceptible to the same flaws that apply to these infrastructure projects. Bridges and dams are far more tangible, and benefit from deep pools of experience.
Related to the bigger goal, I think few people here believe the value of this thread is in brainstorming a specific project proposal.
Rather, there’s lots of other value, e.g. in seeing if any ideas or domains pop out that might help further discussion, and knowledge of existing projects and experts might arise.
(There’s also a perspective that is a bit snobby and looks down on big, grandiose planning).
How relevant is that literature on “megaprojects”? As far as I can tell it seems mostly focused on infrastructure—e.g. construction of big dams, bridges, and so on. Those projects seem very different from the kinds of projects that Ben and Will talk about. (Plus the latter have a smaller size, as mentioned.)
I don’t think the term “megaproject” is misleading or confusing, though others may disagree. The fact that Flyvbjerg and others have used it in one sense doesn’t necessarily mean we can’t use it in another sense.
I appreciate Ozzie flagging this, since a nontrivial fraction of the costs of my proposed idea (shelters) would in fact be construction costs for a fairly difficult/novel thing (eg construct an underground shelter for >100 people with BSL IV entry requirements, enough food, fuel and technical sophistication to support >100 people + >5000 frozen fertilized embryos for >30 years), so even if the objection is not applicable to the other project ideas, it should be applicable to mine.
The megaprojects literature does use it in those ways. I haven’t found that much discussion on what exactly Ben and Will do talk about, I just found a few tweets.
I’m fine with people defining megaproject in a different sense; but if so, I think it should be defined. In this case, it’s not clear to me what their definition is exactly.
My impression is that the commonality of megaproject failure is more “a really big project, with often a bunch of stakeholders, and is difficult to incrementally develop”, more so than being about bridges/dams in particular. Many huge software projects fit similar patterns and have had similar fates. Many large technocratic initiatives also had a lot of problems.
If you take out software, hardware, and technocratic initiatives, I’m not sure why kinds of projects there are that could make it to the $100Mil mark.
Ok, probably more relevant is the the OLPC project. Here is an extremely readable overview.
Honestly, many of the projects in the thread are more susceptible to the same flaws that apply to these infrastructure projects. Bridges and dams are far more tangible, and benefit from deep pools of experience.
Related to the bigger goal, I think few people here believe the value of this thread is in brainstorming a specific project proposal.
Rather, there’s lots of other value, e.g. in seeing if any ideas or domains pop out that might help further discussion, and knowledge of existing projects and experts might arise.
(There’s also a perspective that is a bit snobby and looks down on big, grandiose planning).