Parkinson's Law in Project Management

Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. It was formulated by British historian and author Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an essay for The Economist in 1955.
Originally, Parkinson's Law described how a bureaucracy can grow unrelated to its actual workload because people make work for each other by complicating work. The growth of bureaucracy depends on two factors: (1) The Law of Multiplication of Subordinates and (2) The Law of Multiplication of Work. From statistical analyses, he determined the increase in staff per year to be around 5-7% independent of its workload. Based on this, he formulated a mathematical formula to determine the annual increase in staff in any public administrative department.

Theory

In Parkinson’s essay from 1955, the law refers to the relationship between the bureaucracy and its workload. The law describes how people make work for each other by complicating the work. Therefore, a bureaucracy can grow unrelated to its actual workload. The growth depends on two factors: (1) The Law of Multiplication of Subordinates and (2) The Law of Multiplication of Work. The Law of Multiplication of Subordinates states an overworked person, seeking promotion, in an organisation has incentives to multiply subordinates instead of creating rivals by sharing their work. The Law of Multiplication of Work states that people will make work for each other by complicating it so everyone is occupied. This gives the impression that the staff is overworked and missing resources. Therefore, more staff is hired.
Parkinson uses the bureaucracy of the British Civil Service as an example of Parkinson’s Law. He supports his statements with statistical analyses showing that the number of ships and men in the royal navy fell between 1914 and 1928, while the number of employees in administration rose. With these analyses, he determined the rate of staff per year to be around 5-7% independent of the amount of work. He formulated the following mathematical formula to determine the annual increase in staff in any public administrative department: MISSING FORMULA

• k = number of staff with incentives multiply subordinates
• p = the difference between the ages of appointment and retirement
• m = number of hours devoted to answering minutes within the department
• n = number of effective units being administered
• x = number of new staff each year

The definition of Parkinson’s Law as known today is the first sentence of the essay (Parkinson, 1955), "It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Parkinson describes how work is elastic in its demands on time. Work becomes more complex as to fill the time before completion. Parkinson uses the example of an elderly lady spending a whole day writing and sending a postcard. A busy man could do it in three minutes, yet the lady spends the day worrying and stressing over sending the postcard.
In project management, this is the definition applied. Parkinson’s Law describes the tendency that people will spent all of the allocated time to complete a task regardless of the time it actually takes to complete it. Likewise, a person will not complete a task before a deadline, resulting in inefficient use of resources and time (ref). For instance, a person has one week to complete a task that takes 8 hours, but instead of completing it on the first day using all of their effort, the person will use less effort and spent a week.

Affected Areas

The behaviour associated with Parkinson’s Law has a big influence on project performance. Along with student syndrome, it is one of the main reasons why deadlines are not met.

Within project scheduling, it is important a project manager is aware of it. According to Parkinson's Law, it is assumed that a task either is completed on time or is delayed. The task is not completed before time. To achieve the most efficient use of resources and time, the time allocated for each task needs to correspond with the time it actually takes to complete it. If the allocated time is too short the task is delayed and if the allocated time is too long unnecessary time is spent on the task. However, it is difficult to accurately estimate the time needed as it depends on a number of factors, such as the estimators knowledge about task, the competencies of the person allocated to the task, and available resources.

Besides scheduling, risk management and decision-making are also affected by Parkinson's Law.

Scheduling

In project scheduling, the concern is whether time and resources are used efficiently. In the following sections, scheduling techniques and tools from PMIs standard to project management, 'Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)' (2017), are discussed in relation to Parkinson's Law. Project schedule management is the action of managing and creating a project schedule. Project schedule management consists of six processes to properly manage the completion of a project. The processes are: (1) Plan Schedule Management, (2) Define Activities, (3) Sequence Activities, (4) Estimate Activity Durations, (5) Develop Schedule, and (6) Control Schedule.

Three-point estimating

Three-point estimating is used to determine the duration of an activity. Unlike techniques with the same purpose, three-point estimating considers estimation uncertainty and risk and estimates three durations: The most likely, the optimistic, and the pessimistic.

is significant in limiting the implications of Parkinson’s Law in projects. The objective is to estimate the duration of the activities identified in the second process. To minimise the implications of Parkinson’s Law, the durations need to correspond to the time it takes to complete the activity with the estimated resources. This process requires an estimation of the amount of work effort required to complete the activity and the amount of available

While the three-point estimate clarifies the range of uncertainty, suggesting three durations allows for Parkinson’s Law. If the pessimistic estimate is the longest allowed time while meeting the project completion, people will assume they have more time.

Likewise, reserve analysis also allows for Parkinson’s Law. Contingency reserves are necessary to have when dealing with uncertainty, but following Parkinson’s Law, people will assume they have more time without delaying the project. When dealing with Parkinson’s Law, it is important to set realistic, but tight deadlines. If too much contingency reserve is allowed, people will consume it.