![]() The paper considers the interrelationships between the project’s context, its boundaries, the strategy employed by its promoters for its delivery and the key stakeholders involved in decision making. 2008, 2011, respectively), with a particular focus, amongst others, on the treatment of risk as a response to uncertainty over the longer term, here termed ‘strategic planning risk’. 2017 Lehtonen 2019).ĭifferently from the majority of the literature on megaprojects and risk, this paper presents a selection of findings from two academic studies, undertaken between 20 (see Dimitriou et al. 2015 Samset and Volden 2016 Söderlund et al. These issues are particularly pressing as new MTPs are becoming larger, more complicated, and more critical elements underpinning society, capable of greater negative impacts, both locally and globally (Fahri et al. More recently this emphasis on project delivery has been challenged by mounting concerns regarding the failure of projects to realise their long-term benefits as planned and promised, and sometimes the potentially catastrophic risks that megaprojects can pose to environmental, economic and social development via unforeseen outcomes and impacts (OMEGA 2012 Dimitriou, Ward, and Wright 2013 Sturup and Low 2019 Ward and Skayannis 2019). 2002 Miller and Hobbs 2005) and the outcome of mismatches between cultures and agendas (Pitsis et al. In particular, Sanderson ( 2012) identifies three schools of thought seeking to explain the poor delivery performance as: strategic rent seeking behaviour (Davidson and Huot 1989 Wachs 1989 Flyvbjerg 2009) misaligned and undeveloped governance (Miller and Lessard 2001 De Meyer et al. Judging project success against these three metrics has led to a significant body of research in the project management community arguing that issues of risk are better addressed during the ‘front end’ of project planning and management of MTPs. Despite this, in terms of project management, they have been widely criticised because of their frequent failure to be delivered on budget, to schedule and to specification (see Morris and Hough 1987 Flyvbjerg et al. ![]() ![]() Mega transport projects (MTPs) 1 are often presented as critical catalysts in the process of enabling strategic change, nation-building and urban and regional development with significant and wide-ranging impacts. Whilst the paper draws upon research undertaken between 20, the findings are deemed of continued relevance today in such uncertain times, given the global geopolitical and economic uncertainties and multiple challenges of climate change, pandemics and inequalities which underline the precarious nature of risk management and decision making which prioritises short term project outputs over long term project outcomes and impacts. The author advocates a more ‘open-systems’ approach to megaproject planning and appraisal for infrastructure development that is much more sensitive to changing challenges and uncertainties of new contexts, and how these can affect project outcomes and impacts over the longer term. Drawing from the lessons of past research and practice, the paper concludes by suggesting the essential ingredients of an approach that more explicitly incorporates risks and uncertainties that arise from outside the project portfolio. The key findings of this evaluation suggest that past megaproject decision making is excessively focused on short-term outcomes, with little evidence of the rigorous or systematic analysis of risk and uncertainties that befalls such projects outside of project management and delivery concerns. It is then applied via a qualitative analysis to aspects of the decision-making processes of 27 megaprojects in nine advanced economies of the world. This framework encompasses aspects of strategic planning, contextual awareness and stakeholder management. The findings of the literature review are combined to construct an evaluative framework with specific application to mega transport projects. The paper reviews literature on risk planning and management from a set of papers commissioned by the OMEGA Centre at University College London (UCL) focusing on the treatment of risk and uncertainty in professions and disciplines where these phenomena have long been at the milieu of their planning and management responses. This paper presents the findings of a multi-case study evaluation of megaproject decision making as it relates to the analysis of strategic risk in the planning and appraisal of mega transport infrastructure projects.
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