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With the Irish government coming under pressure to slacken the fiscal reins on capital spending and increase the investment in large infrastructural investment, the prospect of the Megaproject again looms on the horizon.
Megaprojects are large-scale, complex ventures that typically cost $1 billion or more, take many years to develop and build, involve multiple public and private stakeholders, are transformational, and impact millions of people.
Some examples of megaprojects are high-speed rail lines, airports, seaports, motorways, hospitals, national health or pension ICT systems, national border control, national broadband, server farms, offshore oil and gas extraction, aluminium smelters, and the logistics systems used to run large supply-chain-based companies such as Apple, Amazon, and Maersk.
It is not only high costs that make projects "mega". Typically, they involve a large number of stakeholders, take many years to develop and implement, and are significantly more complex than other projects in technology and design. Because of these factors, megaprojects need a dedicated approach to project management to be delivered successfully. If you wish to learn more on how to manage mega projects effectively, take a look at our Project Management Professional course
The McKinsey Global Institute (2013) estimates global infrastructure spending at US$3.4 trillion per year through 2013–2030, mainly delivered as large-scale projects.
The size of megaprojects is staggering no matter what the comparison, and is matched only by the challenges of managing one. Consider that in delivering a megaproject one must - over a relatively short period of time - set up, run, and take down a temporary organization that is often the size of a billion-dollar corporation.
This article is based on an extract of the book: The Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management, ISBN: 9780198732242. Edited by Bent Flyvbjerg and published by Oxford University Press.
Flyvbjerg succeeds admirably with his objective to produce a well-rounded book that is a must-read for anyone embarking on study, research, or practice in megaproject management, or who is impacted by megaprojects and wants to understand them better.