peterldowns parent
You may enjoy the book How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner. It details quite a few large-scale projects, mostly those that failed and went way over budget, and tries to come up with a model for why this happens so often. The examples it uses of how to do things well are really exciting — did you know the Empire State building was also built ahead of schedule and under budget?
Another book about a civil servant doing great things is “Racing for the bomb” about General Leslie Groves who built the Pentagon and led the Manhattan Project, completing both in record time.