Preface to the Chinese Edition of Megaprojects and Risk

The suggestion to make a Chinese translation of Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition was particularly welcome. The book is about how to plan and deliver megaprojects in ways that secure successful outcomes. Megaprojects are highly risky and often go wrong, even in China. Some have gone so wrong that people lost face, including in high places. No one wants to do megaprojects like this, with the tragedy, costs, litigation, collapse of institutions, and public humiliation it entails, negatively affecting people from ordinary citizens to the highest levels of government. This illustrates just how important it is to get megaprojects right. Megaprojects and Risk is about this: how to avoid failure and how to instead deliver megaprojects with the promised benefits, on budget and schedule, and in a safe and environmentally sound manner that improves the reputation of those involved instead of undermining it