WILEY Industrial Megaprojects: Concepts, Strategies, and Practices for Success

I am a bit prejudiced having worked at IPA under Mr. Merrow a decade ago, but I can say without reservation that this is a book you must read if you work on major engineering and construction projects of any type. If you are like me, you have seen many academic papers on cost overruns based on nothing but lousy statistics and flimsy hypotheses. Put those aside..This is the real thing. IPA holds the keys to the kingdom of what drives project performance (i.e., true predictive models based on real, deep and clean data) and Mr. Merrow is generous to share much of what IPA has learned with everyone without pulling punches (but guarding the client's data). I don't agree with every word (e.g., when it says monte-carlo method it is really about the "line-item ranging" method MCS is applied to) but there is little arguing with the general conclusions and recommendations. If only public infrastructure projects would benchmark like the process industries have-maybe that's the next book.

It has lots of useful tips for those wanting to achieve maturity on the subject.

Great book. I have been working on oil and gas megaprojects for a few years now, and can recognise the mistakes and successes described in this book - it's like reading a project history, and quite spooky... It's also taught me why management and Clients make some decisions that us engineers and contractors find utterly baffling (though they may not be the right ones). If you want to learn the inner workings of megaproject management, this is a great book to start with - whether you've been working on them for years, or are just setting out.

I find the book good and scratching on the surface, but also provides experience from the author. Sometimes going in depth, othertimes just mentioning some points. Overall is goodand straight to the point

Ed Merrow is well qualified to write about megaprojects and the particular challenges they present to individuals and organizations. He draws on many years with the Independent Project Assessment group that has audited and peer reviewed many megaprojects over the years. His observations are evidence based and he has a wealth of IPA data to back up them up. If you are interested in learning about the many pitfalls and what needs to be considered in order to avoid or mitigate them, then this is a must read. I think I tagged almost every page before giving the book to my CEO for enlightenment. An easy read for those in the know and really easy if you have been in this field of endeavour for a while.