Who is Parkinson?
C. Northcote Parkinson was a British civil servant and author. He is best known for his book The Law, which was published in 1957. The book is a collection of essays on various topics, including the law of triviality.
What is Parkinson’s law of triviality?
Parkinson’s law of triviality is a concept that states that people will spend more time on trivial issues than on important ones. It is also known as the bike shed effect.
Note: Parkinson’s law of triviality is not the principle known as Parkinson’s law.
As per Parkinson’s argument, the committee formed to approve the plans for a nuclear power plant devote a disproportionate amount of time on discussion about relatively minor but easy-to-grasps issues such as what material to use for the staff bike shed while neglecting the purposed design of the plant itself, which is far more important and a far more difficult and complex task.
Parkinson’s law of triviality in software development
The term bikeshedding is used in software development to describe the tendency of developers to spend a disproportionate amount of time on trivial issues, such as the color of the buttons in a user interface, while neglecting the more important issues, such as the overall architecture of the software. The terms bicycle-shed effect, bike-shed effect, and bike-shedding were coined as a metaphor to illuminate it and were popularized in the Berkeley Software Distribution community by the Danish software developer Poul-Henning Kamp in 1999 and have spread from there to the whole software industry.
Karl Fogel, a renowned engineer on the topic describes the issue as
“the amount of discussion is inversely proportional to the complexity of the topic that has been around for a long time”.
Example and situation
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A Marketing Team: 5 minutes on the review of a new marketing brand strategy and 60 minutes on what to call the strategy
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A facilities committee: 5 minutes on the design of a 10 million dollar HVAC system for a new building and 2 weeks selecting the artwork for the lobby.
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You are out shopping for a T-shirt. You can’t, for the life of you, decide whether to get the color pink or light red, which have a color difference of a delta E value of 1 ( i.e. not even visible to begin with). You stress out over it and decide not to get either of them. You then spend the rest of the week thinking about the T-shirt and the color that you want. You even consult your friends about it. And at the end of the week, you go all the way out and return back to the shop just to get that one T-shirt when you could have gotten it back then when you were there.
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You have a dream to pursue your passion. Everyone around you gets into an outburst and starts volunteering his/her opinions even though you don’t ask for any. You reverberate in shock and decide not to pursue it under everyone’s coaxing.
What leader can do to address Parkinson’s Law of Triviality and its negative consequences?
- Be aware of it. Now that you know about it, it should be easier to anticipate and deal with it.
- Set time expectations and limits for every agenda item and stick to them.
- If an issue is complex, share information about the issue prior to the meeting so that participants can be prepared to discuss it.
- Assign trivial issues to individuals or small sub-teams, and empower them to implement without full team discussion or approval.
- Create an environment that encourages and rewards asking questions. It should be acceptable to be ignorant about a new project or idea and leaders should acknowledge when their staff works to correct that ignorance.
Avoid Parkinson’s law of triviality in your team
- Don’t let trivial issues become a distraction. If you have a team member who is constantly bringing up trivial issues, you need to address it. You can do this by setting time limits for discussion on trivial issues, or by assigning trivial issues to individuals or small sub-teams, and empowering them to implement without full team discussion or approval.
Parkinson’s law of triviality in the real world
While the law is often used to describe the tendency of committees to spend time on trivial issues, it can also be applied to other situations. For example, the law can be applied to the tendency of people to spend time on trivial issues in their personal lives. For example, a person may spend a lot of time deciding what color to paint their house, while neglecting more important issues, such as the overall design of the house.
Parkinson’s law of triviality in the workplace
Parkinson’s law of triviality can be applied to the tendency of people to spend time on trivial issues in the workplace. For example, a person may spend a lot of time deciding what color to paint their office, while neglecting more important issues, such as the overall design of the office.
Parkinson’s law of triviality in the classroom
Parkinson’s law of triviality can be applied to the tendency of people to spend time on trivial issues in the classroom. For example, a student preparing for a test may spend a lot of time studying the names of the presidents of the United States, while neglecting more important issues, such as the overall design of the test.
Avoiding Parkinson’s law of triviality
- Separate the trivial from the important.
- Set time expectations and limits for every agenda item and stick to them.
- If an issue is complex, share information about the issue prior to the meeting so that participants can be prepared to discuss it.
- Assign trivial issues to individuals or small sub-teams, and empower them to implement without full team discussion or approval.
- Create an environment that encourages and rewards asking questions. It should be acceptable to be ignorant about a new project or idea and leaders should acknowledge when their staff works to correct that ignorance.
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