How to diminish project failure in a complex world?

How to diminish project failure in a complex world?

I thought let’s write this one in bold!
Why?
Because managing complexity turns out to be extremely difficult.
I bet you all had fun reading about project failure by Bent Flyvbjerg.
Not?
It?s that rock-hard book under your pillow! Chapter 13!
But only if you want to be the next generation top manager!
But first, before you are the next top manager, you have to understand HOW to deal with complexity.
The good message is that Flyvbjerg ? after years of research ? discovered only two causes for project failure. He calls them the ?root causes?. The mother of all causes: Optimism Bias and Strategic Misrepresentation.
The bad message is that the solution is far from simple. I wrote a post about it: you are never in control but you can always manage
The question is how to deal with growing complexity and diminish project failure at the same time.
This sounds really interesting and worth researching.
Flyvbjerg calls it ?much-needed reform in major project management!?
What could be a topic for research? Flyvbjerg gives us some suggestions. He mentioned trends like ?the outside view, reference class forecasting, improved incentives and accountability?. Maybe there are more ways to improve project success.
Suggestions:
What about the lessons learned from the Amsterdam Subway? Are they implemented? Are they successful? Read about it: Achter de werkelijkheid van projecten (page 40-75)
What about designing a management approach, and redesigning it if needed? Is it applied by managers and are the designs successful?
I bet students are better in defining great research topics!I would like to suggest you use the proposals of Flyvbjerg and reason on, discuss and come up with great research definitions. We, your mentors, are glad to discuss this with you, like Rob Geraedts stated in his announcement of December 3th.
Good luck!
Readings:
Flyvbjerg11OverBudgetOverTimeOverAndOverAgainManagingMajorProjects