Parkinson's Law, and Other Studies in Administration¶
Parkinson, C. N. (1957). Parkinson's Law, and Other Studies in Administration.
Cited by¶
9 citations across 9 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Parkinson's Law
- In bureaucratic staffing, official headcounts multiply at a steady rate largely independent of workload, a pattern observed from Parkinson's British Admiralty study through modern agencies and corporate staff functions.
This sourceDocuments the steady rate of bureaucratic headcount growth largely independent of workload (the Admiralty and Colonial Office staff series).
Supported in partVerified against the publisher's abstract
A bookseller's description confirms the book is about staff accumulation in administration but gives no figures or the workload-independence finding.
“Parkinson's ground-breaking work on staff accumulation and other aspects of administration”
- In bureaucratic staffing, official headcounts multiply at a steady rate largely independent of workload, a pattern observed from Parkinson's British Admiralty study through modern agencies and corporate staff functions.
Domain-specific¶
- Parkinson's Law of Triviality (Bikeshedding)
- Parkinson's law of triviality — popularly "bikeshedding," after C. Northcote Parkinson's 1957 illustration of a finance committee approving a $10,000,000 nuclear reactor in roughly two and a half minutes and then debating a bicycle shed for 45 minutes
This sourceParkinson's staged finance-committee agenda, in which the bicycle-shed item is debated for forty-five minutes and the reactor item takes about two and a half minutes. Parkinson's staged committee agenda, in which the atomic-reactor item, priced at $10,000,000 in the reached printing, is approved in about two and a half minutes.
Supported in partVerified against the source
- Parkinson's law of triviality — popularly "bikeshedding," after C. Northcote Parkinson's 1957 illustration of a finance committee approving a $10,000,000 nuclear reactor in roughly two and a half minutes and then debating a bicycle shed for 45 minutes
Mechanisms¶
- Objective Change-Control Board
- It can calcify into anti-learning bureaucracy, or fall into Parkinson's law of triviality
This sourceNames the law of triviality and shows a committee dwelling on a cheap, comprehensible item while a much more consequential proposal passes with little scrutiny.
- It can calcify into anti-learning bureaucracy, or fall into Parkinson's law of triviality
- Pre-Optimization Review Ritual
- Reviews can drift into bikeshedding
This sourceDescribes disproportionate committee attention to simple, familiar details while complex and consequential matters receive little scrutiny.
- Reviews can drift into bikeshedding
- Pull Request or Merge Request
- The classic form is bikeshedding
This sourceIllustrates the law of triviality through a committee that gives disproportionate attention to an easily understood bicycle shed while slighting a complex reactor proposal.
- The classic form is bikeshedding
- Refinement Backlog Prioritization
- Style Guide Creation
- Its failure mode is that style rules invite bikeshedding — disproportionate energy poured into trivial choices precisely because they are easy to have an opinion on
This sourceDescribes the tendency to spend disproportionate meeting time on trivial matters that participants can readily understand and debate.
- Its failure mode is that style rules invite bikeshedding — disproportionate energy poured into trivial choices precisely because they are easy to have an opinion on
- Timebox and Timeout Rule
- Its strength is converting unbounded effort or waiting into a closed interval with a guaranteed decision at the end: it caps waste, forces a choice while the choice still matters, and directly resists the way work expands to fill the time available for it.
This sourceStates Parkinson's law that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
- Its strength is converting unbounded effort or waiting into a closed interval with a guaranteed decision at the end: it caps waste, forces a choice while the choice still matters, and directly resists the way work expands to fill the time available for it.
- Timeboxed Search
- Its strength is that it makes search terminate on time when time is the binding constraint — it counters the way open-ended searching expands to fill (and overrun) whatever schedule it is given.
This sourceStates Parkinson’s law: work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
- Its strength is that it makes search terminate on time when time is the binding constraint — it counters the way open-ended searching expands to fill (and overrun) whatever schedule it is given.
Verification¶
Does it exist? Not checked yet. This entry carries no identifier to resolve. It was extracted from the citation as written in the article, normalized, and deduplicated against the rest of the registry.
Does it back the claim? Read against the text for 2 of 9 citations: 2 supported in part. Each verdict is shown under its citation below, with what in the work backs the sentence.
Was it audited? Yes. A second, independent pass read the citation against the article text and recorded a verdict.
Support is checked per citation rather than per work — the same source can be cited soundly in one article and wrongly in another. Per-citation recording began recently, so a citation with no recorded check is a gap in the record rather than evidence it went unchecked.
See how references were verified.
Links previously used in the corpus¶
Before the registry existed this work was also linked 5 other ways.
- https://search.worldcat.org/fr/title/Parkinson%27s-law-and-other-studies-in-administration/oclc/572604352 ×3
- https://books.google.com/books/about/Parkinson_s_Law_and_Other_Studies_in_Adm.html?id=ITcPAAAAMAAJ ×1
- https://books.google.com/books?id=82QkAQAAMAAJ ×1
- https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=ti%3A%22Parkinson%27s+Law%2C+and+Other+Studies+in+Administration%22+au%3AParkinson ×1
- https://search.worldcat.org/title/436020 ×1
Registry ID ref:e77d4e5329a3 · see in the full table