A group of engineering projects are examined, all o which failed in a disastrous way, leading to deaths, or failed in spectacularly exceeding the proposed budget. The projects include two NASA projects which had deaths, The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant, BP's Deepwater oil platform in the Mexican Gulf and the Boston Big Dig project. All projects have been shown to have neglected to recognise a group of complex systems parameters, which, if recognised, would have led to avoiding the project failure. The complex systems parameters are examined, some of which are not recognising: Complex rather than complicated; Requisite Variety; Dynamic systems; Beer's Viable Systems Model; We don't know what we don't know; Cascading risk; Systemic risks; Mindfulness; Not dumbing down including reluctance to simplify; Preoccupation with Failure; Normalising deviance; Causal loops; Reference class Forecasting; Generate open communications, clear boundaries and a strong value system.
