,Lecture 1: Complex projects
Project Actionable parts of plans ( structureplans, spatial policy)
3 requirements:
Timing
Place (bv project zone, project study area)
Budget
Strategic projects Projects embedded in strategic plans
Spatial Development Infrastructure projects
Projects (SDP’s)
Type of actors within SDP’s Public projects (bv. Scheldekaaien)
Private projects
Public – private projects
Differentiation between main actors that run the project.
Type of goals SDP’s Single goal or multiple goal
Type of field for SDP’s Greenfield
o Producing not developed land
Brownfield
o Producing on developed land (sanitizing before building, more consistent projects)
o More shifting to these types of projects because greenfield is limited.
Type of landscape SDP’s Urban: landscape projects
Rural: non-urban projects
Type of SDP’s Strategic
o Once in a lifetime project
o No routines in place to manage kind of projects
Operational
o Series of projects that always have the same processes
o With a team that’s always working on those projects.
Management
characteristics of
SDP’s
Complex systems theory Systems with many components
Systems with high distinction (= onderscheid) between components
Mutual dependent things can go easily wrong. Bv. Parkeerplaats te klein / te groot
dat een effect kan hebben op leven, winkelen, milieu.
Different types of complexity Technological complexity
o Design & Engineering
o Unicity (= zeldzaam) & nieuwigheid (novelty) v technology (= overall anders, de
techn. Op de ene locatie is niet hetzeflde als op de andere)
, o Functional interdependencies (sommige markten kunnen achterlopen met techn.)
o Uncertainty regarding the impact
o Technological dynamics during the project
Societal complexity
o Many actors involved with different goals differential impact thus winners &
losers, so projects result in societal struggle
o Bv de ring: port area more infrastructure to use, but less space to live.
o Large societal impact
Political complexity
o Multi-level governance (te maken met verschillende lagen met een groot project ivm
budget)
o Effect of elections and political volatility (onzekerheid)
o Political strategic behaviour: political actors block each other
o Political logic is different from technological logic: political horse-trading in projects.
Organizational complexity
o Organizational complexity public, private, civil society
o Mutual dependency (resource dependency)
o Obliged to cooperate
Juridical-administrative complexity
o Lot of procedures, environmental legislation, contracts
Megaprojects A separate specie of SDP’s
Cost > 1 billion
Many years to build
Involve multiple stakeholders
Impact millions of people
Performance of megaprojects shows: Systematic
Cost overrun
o Cost escalation
Time slippage
Non-implementation
Underperformance or underuse
Decreasing ambition levels over time.
Theoretical causes of failures The sublime of megaprojects (= drivers from megaproject initiation)
o 4 sublimes:
Technological: possibilities in longest-highest-fastest projects
Political: happy to have monuments and being visible in media & public.
Economic: happy to get money & jobs from megaprojects.
, Aesthetic: happiness from design lovers when buildings are beautiful/stylish.
Optimism bias and deception (= drivers for mega project commitment)
o Pattern of errors is always skewed to the right (cost overrun)
o Their errors are intentional due cost underestimation
o Project promotors are too optimistic about costs & benefits (optimism bias)
Accountability & Risk
o Ignoring uncertainties by different groups who are involved in decision making of a
megaproject because of no responsibility when things go wrong (accountability =
responsibility)
o Types of risk in megaprojects:
Cost risk
Demand risk
Financial market risk (future interest rates)
Political risk (regulation, parallel public investment)
o Studies are biased because of no accountability by actors in the decision-making
process.
o Traditional approaches to project management & better approaches
Sunk costs and the escalation of commitment (= drivers for megaproject escalation)
o Escalation of commitment = tendency to keep investing in “bad” investments (fi old
car, waiting in line)
o Because of:
Psychological mechanism
Social drivers
Project & economic drivers
Transfer of risk and impacts to outside parties
Fail
Questions: 1. What are SDP’s 1. Infrastructure projects
2. What are the different forms of 2. Technological, societal, political, organizational, juridical-adminstrative
complexity in Spatial development 3. ?Uncertainties & risks?
projects? 4. drivers from megaproject initiation: 4 types: technological, politic, economic, aesthetic.
3. What are the typical fail factors in Spatial 5. (4) sublimes, optimism bias and deception, accountability & risk, sunk costs and the
development projects? escalation of commitment
4. What is the megaproject sublime?
5. What are causes of megaproject failure?
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