Title: Anticipating and avoiding opposition in large technological projects

Authors: Dorien J. DeTombe

Addresses: Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Systems Engineering, Policy, Analyses and Management, P.O. Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands

Abstract: Large technological projects developed by high quality engineering management often encounter opposition that was not anticipated beforehand and can delay plans for years. This often enlarges the costs of the project beyond control. Not realising that public technological engineering projects can provoke a huge public debate which can lead to a delay of years and increase the costs of a project by a large amount is to underestimate the complexity of such projects. Including the important actors from the start, and taking time to anticipate the societal reactions and opposition will decrease the negative reactions at the moment of implementation. Not all reactions can be avoided or anticipated, but including some of the possible reactions makes the estimation of the costs and calculating the time span of the project more realistic. A method that tries to handle anticipating and avoiding opposition is the Compram method. The part of the method that deals with these issues will be described.

Keywords: analytic method; complex societal problems; opposition; technological projects; engineering projects.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2000.002829

International Journal of Technology Management, 2000 Vol.19 No.3/4/5, pp.301-312

Published online: 07 Jul 2003 *

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