文章來源：《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人》Mar 18th 2023 期 Business 欄目 Mega lowdown

Lots of countries have big construction projects that become a byword for ineptitude. In America the “Big Dig”, a highway project that snarled up the centre of Boston for years, came in five times over its initial budget. The stadium built for the Montreal Olympics in 1976 was unaffectionately known as the “Big Owe” after costs overran massively; the debts from the games were paid off only 30 years later. Even the Germans get megaprojects wrong. Ground was broken at Brandenburg Airport in Berlin in 2006, and the first flights took off in 2020, ten years later than scheduled.

許多國家的大型建設(shè)項(xiàng)目已經(jīng)成為無能的代名詞。在美國，高速公路項(xiàng)目“大挖掘”多年來一直困擾著波士頓市中心，它的投入是最初預(yù)算的五倍。為1976年蒙特利爾奧運(yùn)會建造的體育場在成本大幅超支后被無情地稱為“大虧欠”; 奧運(yùn)會的債務(wù)在30年后就還清了。就連德國人也不能搞定大型項(xiàng)目。柏林勃蘭登堡機(jī)場于2006年破土動工，第一批航班于2020年起飛，比原計(jì)劃晚了10年。

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The embarrassment caused by Britain’s biggest construction project is set to last for many years yet. A plan to build a high-speed railway, called hs2, down the spine of England was approved by the government in 2012. This month came confirmation of another in a long series of delays. Now the first passengers will only get on board some time in the 2030s, if they are lucky. Costs have doubled from their initial estimate; bits of the route have been lopped off; and the trains will not zip along as quickly as originally planned.

英國最大的建筑項(xiàng)目造成的尷尬將持續(xù)多年。2012年，政府批準(zhǔn)了修建一條名為HS2的高速鐵路的計(jì)劃，該鐵路將貫穿英格蘭的主干線。本月又有一起長期延期事件得到確認(rèn)?，F(xiàn)在，如果幸運(yùn)的話，第一批乘客只能在2030年代的某個(gè)時(shí)候上船。成本比最初的估計(jì)翻了一番; 部分路線已經(jīng)被砍掉; 列車也不會像原計(jì)劃的那樣快速行駛。

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Megaprojects like hs2 are the subject of an entertaining new book called “How Big Things Get Done” by Bent Flyvbjerg, an academic at Oxford University who specialises in such things, and Dan Gardner, a journalist. Mr Flyvbjerg is the compiler of a database of over 16,000 projects, which tells a grimly consistent tale of missed deadlines and shattered budgets. By his reckoning, only 8.5% of projects meet their initial estimates on cost and time, and a piddling 0.5% achieve what they set out to do on cost, time and benefits.

像HS2這樣的大型項(xiàng)目是牛津大學(xué)學(xué)者Bent Flyvbjerg和記者Dan Gardner合著的一本名為《如何完成大事》的有趣新書的主題。Bent Flyvbjerg專門研究這類事情。Flyvbjerg先生是一個(gè)包含16000多個(gè)項(xiàng)目的數(shù)據(jù)庫的編譯者，這個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)庫講述了一個(gè)關(guān)于錯(cuò)過最后期限和預(yù)算超支的極其始終如一的故事。據(jù)他估計(jì)，只有8.5%的項(xiàng)目在成本和時(shí)間上符合最初的估計(jì)，而在成本、時(shí)間和效益上達(dá)到預(yù)期目標(biāo)的項(xiàng)目只有區(qū)區(qū)0.5%。

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Mr Flyvbjerg’s advice is not a guarantee of success: his team was involved in assessing the risks associated with hs2. But the picture that he and Mr Gardner draw of why projects, large and small, tend to go wrong is compelling.

Flyvbjerg的建議并不是成功的保證: 他的團(tuán)隊(duì)參與了與HS2相關(guān)的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)評估。但是，他和Gardner所描繪的"為什么大大小小的項(xiàng)目都容易出錯(cuò)"是引人注目的。

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Over-optimistic time and cost estimates stem from both psychological and political biases: a reliance on intuition rather than data, and a problem that Mr Flyvbjerg and Mr Gardner call “strategic misrepresentation”. This is when budgets are deliberately lowballed in order to get things going, on the premise that nothing would ever get built if politicians went around being accurate. The sunk-cost fallacy, whereby people hesitate to halt projects because money spent will seem to have been wasted, means that the plug is seldom pulled once work is under way.

過于樂觀的時(shí)間和成本估算源自心理和政治偏見: 依賴直覺而非數(shù)據(jù)，以及Flyvbjerg和Gardner所稱之為“策略性虛假陳述”的問題。“策略性虛假陳述”是指為了讓事情進(jìn)行下去，預(yù)算被故意低報(bào)，如果政客們到處精確的話，什么也建不起來。沉沒成本謬誤，即人們不愿停止項(xiàng)目，因?yàn)榛说腻X會被浪費(fèi)，這意味著一旦工作開始，就很少會停止。

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Planning is too often done in haste. The authors laud Pixar’s methodical approach to developing and testing films in great detail before they go into production. They also tell the story of how Frank Gehry’s meticulous architectural models helped ensure the success of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. By keeping to a minimum the window when the project is actually being implemented, thorough planning reduces the probability of unexpected events derailing things. The people running hs2 seem to disagree. In theory the most recent delays enable the British government to spend less money each year; in practice they just increase the risk of yet more things going wrong.

計(jì)劃往往是倉促完成的。作者贊揚(yáng)了皮克斯在電影投入生產(chǎn)前對其進(jìn)行細(xì)致入微的開發(fā)和測試的方法。它們還講述了弗蘭克·蓋里細(xì)致的建筑模型如何確保畢爾巴鄂古根海姆博物館的成功。通過將項(xiàng)目實(shí)際實(shí)施的窗口期保持在最小值，全面的計(jì)劃可以降低意外事件使事情“脫軌”的可能性。運(yùn)營HS2的人似乎不同意這種說法。從理論上講，最近的延期使得英國政府每年的支出減少;實(shí)際上，它們只會增加更多事情出錯(cuò)的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。

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Big bespoke projects are particularly likely to run into trouble. The more that a project can be disaggregated into replicable processes, the better its prospects. Mr Flyvbjerg’s database shows that solar-power and windpower installations stand the best chance of not going wrong, in part because standard components can be snapped together into arrays and turbines. At the other end of the risk scale lie gigantic one-off efforts like nuclear-power stations and the Olympic games.

大型定制項(xiàng)目更有可能遇到麻煩。一個(gè)項(xiàng)目越能分解成可復(fù)制的過程，它的前景就越好。Flyvbjerg的數(shù)據(jù)庫顯示，太陽能和風(fēng)能發(fā)電裝置最有可能不出問題，部分原因是標(biāo)準(zhǔn)組件可以組合成陣列和渦輪機(jī)。在風(fēng)險(xiǎn)天平的另一端，是核電站和奧運(yùn)會等一次性的巨大努力。

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Mitigating the dangers inherent in big bespoke projects is possible. Some think the future of nuclear energy lies in modular reactors. Paris, the city hosting next year’s summer Olympics, is using existing facilities for most of the sporting venues. Standardised designs and manufacturing processes for everything from train tracks to viaducts helped China build the world’s largest high-speed rail network in less than a decade at the start of this century.

減輕大型定制項(xiàng)目固有的危險(xiǎn)是可能的。一些人認(rèn)為核能的未來在于模塊化反應(yīng)堆。明年夏季奧運(yùn)會的舉辦地巴黎，大部分體育場館都在使用現(xiàn)有設(shè)施。從鐵路軌道到高架橋，標(biāo)準(zhǔn)化的設(shè)計(jì)和制造流程幫助中國在本世紀(jì)初不到10年的時(shí)間里建成了全球最大的高速鐵路網(wǎng)。

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Projects run into problems for specific reasons as well as general ones: Britain’s quagmire of planning rules is not something that China had to worry about, for instance. And the timescales, the scrutiny and the objectives of big public-infrastructure projects differ from those of corporate initiatives. But there are lessons here for managers of all stripes. If you plan rigorously and standardise where possible, you are less likely to dig yourself into a hole.

項(xiàng)目遇到問題的原因既有特殊原因，也有一般原因: 比如，中國不必?fù)?dān)心英國在規(guī)劃規(guī)則方面陷入困境。而且大型公共基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施項(xiàng)目的時(shí)間表、審查和目標(biāo)都不同于企業(yè)倡議。但這對所有類型的管理者都有借鑒意義。如果你嚴(yán)格計(jì)劃，盡可能標(biāo)準(zhǔn)化，你就不太可能讓自己陷入困境。