Dan Gardner - Böcker

Best Books of the Year – The Financial Times and The EconomistShortlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year AwardWorld expert Bent Flyvbjerg and bestselling author Dan Gardner reveal the secrets to successfully planning and delivering ambitious projects on any scale.‘Important, timely, instructive and entertaining’ – Daniel Kahneman, bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and SlowNothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant new reality. Think of how Apple’s iPod went from a project with a single employee to an enormously successful product launch in eleven months. But such successes are the exception. Consider how London’s Crossrail project delivered five years late and billions over budget. More modest endeavours, whether launching a small business, organizing a conference, or just finishing a work project on time, also commonly fail. Why?Understanding what distinguishes the triumphs from the failures has been the life’s work of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg. In How Big Things Get Done, he identifies the errors that lead projects to fail, and the research-based principles that will make yours succeed:Understand your odds. If you don’t know them, you won’t win.Plan slow, act fast. Getting to the action quick feels right. But it’s wrong.Think right to left. Start with your goal, then identify the steps to get there.Find your Lego. Big is best built from small.Master the unknown unknowns. Most think they can’t, so they fail. Flyvbjerg shows how you can.Full of vivid examples ranging from the building of the Sydney Opera House to the making of the latest Pixar blockbusters, How Big Things Get Done reveals how to get any ambitious project done – on time and on budget.'Entertaining . . . compelling . . . there are lessons here for managers of all stripes' – The Economist'My only complaint about this book is that it wasn’t written earlier' – Ola Rosling, bestselling co-author of Factfulness

The international bestseller'A manual for thinking clearly in an uncertain world. Read it.' Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow_________________________What if we could improve our ability to predict the future?Everything we do involves forecasts about how the future will unfold. Whether buying a new house or changing job, designing a new product or getting married, our decisions are governed by implicit predictions of how things are likely to turn out. The problem is, we're not very good at it.In a landmark, twenty-year study, Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed that the average expert was only slightly better at predicting the future than a layperson using random guesswork. Tetlock's latest project – an unprecedented, government-funded forecasting tournament involving over a million individual predictions – has since shown that there are, however, some people with real, demonstrable foresight. These are ordinary people, from former ballroom dancers to retired computer programmers, who have an extraordinary ability to predict the future with a degree of accuracy 60% greater than average. They are superforecasters.In Superforecasting, Tetlock and his co-author Dan Gardner offer a fascinating insight into what we can learn from this elite group. They show the methods used by these superforecasters which enable them to outperform even professional intelligence analysts with access to classified data. And they offer practical advice on how we can all use these methods for our own benefit – whether in business, in international affairs, or in everyday life._________________________'The techniques and habits of mind set out in this book are a gift to anyone who has to think about what the future might bring. In other words, to everyone.' Economist'A terrific piece of work that deserves to be widely read . . . Highly recommended.' Independent'The best thing I have read on predictions . . . Superforecasting is an indispensable guide to this indispensable activity.' The Times

Alla gör vi förutsägelser, i stort och i smått. Om världshändelser, om vem som vinner val eller fotbollsmatcher, om samhällsekonomi och privatekonomi, om vad som kommer att ske på jobbet och så vidare. Vi är alla prognostiker, men de flesta av oss är dåliga på att förutsäga framtiden. Psykologen Philip Tetlock visade i sin uppmärksammade bok "Expert Political Judgment" hur dåliga politiska experter är på att göra förutsägelser trots att de gör det hela tiden. Men bland de experter han studerade fanns också en del som var påfallande träffsäkra. I "Konsten att förutsäga framtiden" presenterar han resultaten av ett omfattande forskningsprojekt som har involverat tusentals människor som ställt prognoser om världshändelser. Dessa var inte experter på det de tillfrågades om, men en del av dem visade sig vara utomordentligt träffsäkra. De var "superprognostiker". Vad gjorde dem så bra på att förutsäga? Hur samlade de information, hur resonerade de och hur förhöll de sig till sitt eget resonerande och till ny information? Och vad kan vi andra lära oss om tankefel som vi lätt gör, men som superprognostikerna lyckas undvika. Lättillgängligt och underhållande redogör Tetlock tillsammans med Dan Gardner för sina forskningsresultat. Daniel Kahneman, nobelpristagare i ekonomi och känd för sin banbrytande forskning om tankefel, säger följande om boken: "... en underbar bok om hur Tetlock och hans forskarlag fick vanliga människor att slå experter. Det är också en handbok för klart tänkande i en osäker värld. Läs den!"."Philip Tetlock är en världsledande expert inom ett viktigt fält. ... en underbar bok om hur Tetlock och hans forskarlag fick vanliga människor att slå experter. Det är också en handbok för klart tänkande i en osäker värld. Läs den! /Daniel Kahneman "Det är en väldigt bra bok. Den borde faktiskt vara obligatorisk läsning – något jag aldrig tidigare skrivit i en recension. Den borde finnas på varje chefs och investerares läslista ..." /Management Today Tetlock, tillsammans med sin medförfattare Dan Gardner, redovisar och diskuterar projektet i den mycket läsvärda ”Konsten att förutsäga framtiden”. De undersöker några av deltagarna i den grupp de arbetat med – de som visat sig vara mycket bra på att förutsäga framtiden – från tre olika perspektiv. De studerar deras intelligens, deras matematiska förmåga och deras konsumtion av nyheter – och finner i nyanserade och intressanta resultat att alla dessa tre faktorer har en positiv påverkan på deltagarnas förutsägelser, men att de inte ensamma räcker för att förklara de extremt goda resultat som vissa av deltagarna uppvisar." /SvD Under strecket

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST “The most important book on decision making since Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow.”—Jason Zweig, The Wall Street Journal   Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week’s meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts’ predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study was that some experts do have real foresight, and Tetlock has spent the past decade trying to figure out why. What makes some people so good? And can this talent be taught?   In Superforecasting, Tetlock and coauthor Dan Gardner offer a masterwork on prediction, drawing on decades of research and the results of a massive, government-funded forecasting tournament. The Good Judgment Project involves tens of thousands of ordinary people—including a Brooklyn filmmaker, a retired pipe installer, and a former ballroom dancer—who set out to forecast global events. Some of the volunteers have turned out to be astonishingly good. They’ve beaten other benchmarks, competitors, and prediction markets. They’ve even beaten the collective judgment of intelligence analysts with access to classified information. They are "superforecasters."   In this groundbreaking and accessible book, Tetlock and Gardner show us how we can learn from this elite group. Weaving together stories of forecasting successes (the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound) and failures (the Bay of Pigs) and interviews with a range of high-level decision makers, from David Petraeus to Robert Rubin, they show that good forecasting doesn’t require powerful computers or arcane methods. It involves gathering evidence from a variety of sources, thinking probabilistically, working in teams, keeping score, and being willing to admit error and change course. Superforecasting offers the first demonstrably effective way to improve our ability to predict the future—whether in business, finance, politics, international affairs, or daily life—and is destined to become a modern classic.

We are the safest humans who ever lived - the statistics prove it. And yet the media tells a different story with its warnings and scare stories. How is it possible that anxiety has become the stuff of daily life?In this ground-breaking, compulsively readable book, Dan Gardner shows how our flawed strategies for perceiving risk influence our lives, often with unforeseen and sometimes-tragic consequences. He throws light on our paranoia about everything from paedophiles to terrorism and reveals how the most significant threats are actually the mundane risks to which we pay little attention.Speaking to psychologists and scientists, as well as looking at the influence of the media and politicians, Gardner uncovers one of the central puzzles of our time: why are the safest people in history living in a culture of fear?