Parkinson's Law
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| + | C. Northcote Parkinson was a British naval historian who is best known for his best-seller book 'Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress' (1957), in which he formulated that 'Work Expands To Fit The Time Available For Its Completion', which in turn has shown that one consequence of this is that the number of administrators within a public organization tends to increase regardless of the amount of work done externally by set organization [1][2]. For instance, an elderly lady of leisure can spend a whole day merely composing and sending a postcard to niece. An hour spent finding the postcard, another looking for spectacles, an hour and a half in composition, and another thirty minutes in deciding whether to wear a coat when heading to the postbox [3]. The total effort of this would require three minutes of time from a busy man could in this fashion occupy a person for a day filled with doubt, anxiety, and toil [3]. | ||
| − | + | The Law not only applies to individuals, but also teams, organizations, armed forces, universities, corporations etc. [4] Several automatic and purposeful factors are at play. There is a defensive desire to appear busy when there is no work to be done. There is a desire to be prolific and to multiply employees. Furthermore, there is a general propensity to just procrastinate. The Law states in general why the useful work done depends so slightly on the number of employees, overtime policies, vacation schedules, or retirement practices. Thus, the compound growth rate of a bureaucracy or its feverish activity are not indices of its effectiveness [4]. The Law can now be described as a mathematical equation describing the rate at which bureaucracies grows over time. This growth was explained by Parkinson using two forces: 1) “An official wants to multiply subordinates”, and 2) “Officials make work for each other” [5]. | |
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| + | To diminish the effects posed by Parkinson’s Law, a project manager must be able to assess and manage their team’s efforts in terms of time spent on tasks, relative productivity (usually visualized with a burndown chart) and the skills of the individual team members. | ||
Revision as of 22:20, 14 February 2021
C. Northcote Parkinson was a British naval historian who is best known for his best-seller book 'Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress' (1957), in which he formulated that 'Work Expands To Fit The Time Available For Its Completion', which in turn has shown that one consequence of this is that the number of administrators within a public organization tends to increase regardless of the amount of work done externally by set organization [1][2]. For instance, an elderly lady of leisure can spend a whole day merely composing and sending a postcard to niece. An hour spent finding the postcard, another looking for spectacles, an hour and a half in composition, and another thirty minutes in deciding whether to wear a coat when heading to the postbox [3]. The total effort of this would require three minutes of time from a busy man could in this fashion occupy a person for a day filled with doubt, anxiety, and toil [3].
The Law not only applies to individuals, but also teams, organizations, armed forces, universities, corporations etc. [4] Several automatic and purposeful factors are at play. There is a defensive desire to appear busy when there is no work to be done. There is a desire to be prolific and to multiply employees. Furthermore, there is a general propensity to just procrastinate. The Law states in general why the useful work done depends so slightly on the number of employees, overtime policies, vacation schedules, or retirement practices. Thus, the compound growth rate of a bureaucracy or its feverish activity are not indices of its effectiveness [4]. The Law can now be described as a mathematical equation describing the rate at which bureaucracies grows over time. This growth was explained by Parkinson using two forces: 1) “An official wants to multiply subordinates”, and 2) “Officials make work for each other” [5].
To diminish the effects posed by Parkinson’s Law, a project manager must be able to assess and manage their team’s efforts in terms of time spent on tasks, relative productivity (usually visualized with a burndown chart) and the skills of the individual team members.
