Despite the application of project management tools and techniques in projects worldwide, still a large number of projects fail to meet their objectives. Based on studies on the history of failed projects, it is obvious that projects do not result in failure overnight. With hindsight, project managers are often able to point out the most likely factors leading to project failure. One approach towards prevention of project failure or deviation from the main goal is to attempt to detect possible signs of project failure in early stages of projects. These signs are referred to as Early Warning signs. The challenge for project managers is to identify these signs and attempt to respond to them in order to prevent the negative circumstances. Although it is not a proven fact that identification of EW signals is a guarantee against project failure, there are a number of resources which consider paying attention to these signals and attempt to respond to them as a contribution to project success. This book provides better understanding of the Early Warning phenomenon, possible approaches for identifying them and the barriers against effective responses to these signs in practice.

Complex projects are often the most high-profile projects within an organization. How can early warning signs be identified and acted upon, so that problems are avoided and projects are successful in delivering the expected value for their owners and other stakeholders? What signals should we look for? Looking for early warning signs takes more than a keen eye. Collaborating with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, Ole Jonny Klakegg, Terry Williams, Derek Walker, Bj&ørn Andersen, and Ole Morten Magnussen have expanded on their research of governance frameworks and guidelines as well as provided interviews with experts and case studies from Australia, Norway, and the United Kingdom. This international report identifies early warning signs in highly complex projects and offers tips on how to combat them.

Striving for agile, adaptive teams and organizations is a growing trend in management education, and for good reason. Modern organizations operate in an environment of intense competitive pressure and technological uncertainty. No Surprises Project Management anticipated this trend and remains the best documented description of how pressure and uncertainty, when not addressed, combine to produce mediocre to poor performance. More importantly, No Surprises Project Management provides key principles and a system of practices for achieving excellent performance even in the most challenging high stakes environments. Nearly a decade after publication, the book is still praised for describing a manageable and replicable approach to helping teams and organizations succeed. The last 60 pages of the book contain detailed procedures and example templates.

This paper considers how project assessments may be used to identify early warning signs in projects, and how complexity influences it. This study confirms the main findings in earlier literature and gives an overview of current documented practice. Then comprehensive empirical research is performed to expand this. Results show that project professionals are not very good at detecting early warning signs and even less good at acting on them. Barriers that lead to this are identified. Identifying and acting on early warning signs is particularly important in the initiation or set-up phase of the project, but also relevant in later phases, including execution. The nature of early warning signs and the way these can be detected change over time and with the evolving situation. We see that project assessments, typically performed as part of gateways, are useful in identifying early warnings connected to the documentation and formalities of the project. As the complexity increases, the assessments have more limited use, and the project is increasingly dependent on detecting early warning signs by informal "gut-feel" approaches. This indicates the increased importance of knowledge, experience, and communication skills in complex situations. The paper concludes with a list of early warning signs.

Since the dawn of medical science, people have recognized connections between a change in the weather and the appearance of epidemic disease. With today's technology, some hope that it will be possible to build models for predicting the emergence and spread of many infectious diseases based on climate and weather forecasts. However, separating the effects of climate from other effects presents a tremendous scientific challenge. Can we use climate and weather forecasts to predict infectious disease outbreaks? Can the field of public health advance from "surveillance and response" to "prediction and prevention?" And perhaps the most important question of all: Can we predict how global warming will affect the emergence and transmission of infectious disease agents around the world? Under the Weather evaluates our current understanding of the linkages among climate, ecosystems, and infectious disease; it then goes a step further and outlines the research needed to improve our understanding of these linkages. The book also examines the potential for using climate forecasts and ecological observations to help predict infectious disease outbreaks, identifies the necessary components for an epidemic early warning system, and reviews lessons learned from the use of climate forecasts in other realms of human activity.

This paper provides an overview of the full extent of early warning detection approaches, which are directly or indirectly addressed in the literature. These approaches can aid project managers in taking corrective actions timely enough for preventing failures. This paper is based on a review of the current literature within the field of early warning in project management and on the authors' experiences gained from practice. It also builds upon the authors' experiences in various forms, both through advising and supervising project management teams and through observations and studies of projects. The authors extract possible approaches for early warning signs (EWS) from the literature and practical experience, and make a thorough discussion of their strengths and weaknesses. Specifically, the paper addresses these questions: (1) What approaches exist for detecting early warning signs and how can they be categorized; and (2) What are the strengths and weaknesses of different EWS detection approaches under different circumstances? The authors conclude that the choice of the most effective approach is arguably dependent on the type of project, organizational culture, and the project environment.