Early Project Appraisal: Making the Initial Choices

What do these things have in common? An airport, the Olympic Games, the development of a new vaccine, or a wedding.

They were all organized as projects. Today's major undertakings could hardly be done differently since they all require cooperation across sectors and institutional borders. Project management expertise is therefore much in demand to ensure efficient implementation and avoid large cost overruns and delays. The problem is that many projects fail even though they were implemented successfully, simply because the project concept was wrong. Today's paradox is that we know a lot about how to manage a project - but not enough to ensure that the right project concept is chosen.

This book provides some insight into how bad ideas can be avoided and good ideas developed into successful projects.