Making Essential Choices with Scant Information

TERRY WILLIAMS is a Management Scientist at Southampton University, UK. After 9 years in engineering consultancy developing project risk management, he worked at Strathclyde University, becoming Professor and Department Head, researching the behaviour of major projects and supporting post-project claims. He is a speaker/writer on project modelling, and has written 60 refereed journal articles and books on modelling and learning from complex projects. He is a member of many leading research networks.   KJELL SUNNEVÅG is a senior adviser at the Norwegian Competition Authority. He has worked as a research economist since 1987. His first position was at the Christian Michelsen Institute (CMI) in Bergen, research focus being on petroleum economics. Later, he moved to the Foundation for research in Economics and Business Administration (SNF), extending the research interests to energy economics and public policy and economics. One of his last assignments there was editing/contribute to a report on making decisions based on scant information.  KNUT SAMSET is Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and director of a research program on front-end management of major investment projects. He has a background in engineering and social science and has worked many years as consultant and advisor to national and international governmental organizations. He has written a number of books on project design, evaluation, and project risk management.

• PART I: INTRODUCTION Decisions Made on Scant Information: Overview; T.Williams Projects, their Quality at Entry - and Challenges in the Front-end Phase; K.Samset PART II: ALIGNING PROJECTS Implementing Strategy through Project Management: The Importance of Managing the Project Front-end; P. Morris Scenarios Planning; K. van der Heijden Up-front Assessment of Needs; P.Naess Front-end Alignment of Projects – Doing the Right Project; T.Cooke-Davies Using Soft Systems Methodology to Structure Project Definition; M.Winter PART III: GENERATING INFORMATION Optimism and Misrepresentation in Early Project Development; B.Flyvbjerg Decision Behaviour – Improving Expert Judgement; G.Kirkebøen Useful Heuristics; B.Scheibehenne& B.von Helversen Expert Judgment of Probability and Risk; G.Wright, F.Bolger,& G.Rowe Evaluation of Risks in Complex Problems; G.Parnell Obtaining Distributions from Groups for Decisions under Uncertainty; R.Cooke PART IV: ANALYSING INFORMATION Exploratory Quantitative Analysis of Emergent Problems with Scant Information; T.Bedford Analyzing Information: Techniques and Analyses; B.Andersen Parametric Analysis; P.Pugh PART V: MAKING DECISIONS The Impact of New Information; K.Sunnevaag The Complexity of Decision-making in Large Projects with Multiple Partners: Be Prepared to Change; R.Miller& B.Hobbs From Analysis to Decision – Economic Assessment; K.Hagen