Sergio Caredda
Parkinson’s Law is a well-known adage in management and organizational theory that was first articulated by British historian and author Cyril Northcote Parkinson in a 1955 article in The Economist, and later in his book Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress (1958). The law is typically stated as follows:
“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”
Parkinson’s Law suggests that the amount of time you give a task determines how much time that task will take. If you allocate more time than is necessary, the task will become more complex, involve more steps, or simply take longer to complete due to procrastination or over-analysis.
This law is the first one that originates from the work of Parkinson, and focuses on individual behaviours towards time allocation (whereas the other one, that goes under the name of Law of Triviality, focuses on the behaviour of entire organizations).
This law is normally referred to when talking about project management or time management. So what is its relationship with Organisation Design?
- Key Implications of Parkinson’s Law
- 1. Time Management
- 2. Project Management
- 3. Efficiency and Productivity
- 4. Overhead and Bureaucracy
- 5. Organisation Design
- Applications and Countermeasures
- 1. Setting Realistic Deadlines:
- 2. Time Boxing:
- 3. Task Prioritization:
- 4. Lean Practices:
- 5. Focus on Outcomes:
- 6. Design for Scarcity:
- An Example: the 4 days week
- Conclusion
- Comments and Feedbacks
- References
Figure one gives a visual representation of this law. Essentially it states that there is an “optimal time” allotted for a given task. As we increase allotted time, we move in an area of Time Waste. As we move to the left, instead, we can explore Productivity Gains.
If you move way from visualizing the law applied to one activity or task and start thinking of it applied to Job Design, you can immediately see its impact on Organisation Design.
Key Implications of Parkinson’s Law
Let’s see the key implications of this Law onto various domains impacting general management practices as well as organisation design.
1. Time Management
Parkinson’s Law has significant implications for time management. It highlights the tendency for tasks to take longer when more time is available, often leading to inefficiencies. This can result in delays and unnecessary complications in projects.
Example: If a team is given two weeks to complete a task that could reasonably be done in one week, they may spend the first week procrastinating, adding unnecessary details, or holding extra meetings, thus using up the entire two weeks.
2. Project Management
In project management, Parkinson’s Law suggests that deadlines should be set realistically to ensure that work does not drag on unnecessarily. Shorter, more focused deadlines can often lead to quicker completion and better results.
Example: In software development, setting shorter sprints or deadlines can help ensure that teams focus on delivering the most important features first, rather than allowing the project to expand unnecessarily.
3. Efficiency and Productivity
The law also implies that people will often find ways to make work more complex or time-consuming if they have too much time available. This can reduce overall productivity and efficiency within an organization. Which is why roles need to be created having in mind this principle.
Example: An employee tasked with writing a report might spend an excessive amount of time on formatting, unnecessary data collection, or overanalyzing minor points if they believe they have more time than needed.
4. Overhead and Bureaucracy
Parkinson also observed that as organizations grow, they tend to become more bureaucratic, with the number of employees increasing regardless of the amount of actual work. This can lead to inefficiencies, where work is created to justify the existence of additional staff.
Example: A government department might expand its staff and create more layers of management, leading to slower decision-making processes and an increase in paperwork, even if the volume of essential work remains the same.
5. Organisation Design
Practice shows that we could find an alternative version or a corollary to this law as follows:
Work expands to fill the roles available for its completion
The above is not just an abstraction of the overhead and bureaucracy issue already described, but also points out to the fact that the creation itself of a role will mean creating work for it.
Example: A manager that creates an entirely new role for activities that were not done in the past, will immediately drive up work around those activities to fill the available role.
Applications and Countermeasures
What can we do, as OD specialists or HR professionals, to counteract these
1. Setting Realistic Deadlines:
To combat Parkinson’s Law, set realistic, yet challenging deadlines that encourage focus and efficiency. Avoid giving more time than is necessary, which can lead to procrastination and inefficiency.
2. Time Boxing:
Time boxing is a technique where a fixed amount of time is allocated to a task, and the task must be completed within that time frame. This approach helps prevent work from expanding beyond what is necessary.
3. Task Prioritization:
Prioritizing tasks based on their importance and setting deadlines accordingly can help ensure that critical tasks are completed efficiently, without unnecessary expansion.
4. Lean Practices:
Implementing lean practices, such as reducing waste and streamlining processes, can help organizations minimize the inefficiencies that Parkinson’s Law predicts. By focusing on value-added activities, organizations can avoid allowing work to expand unnecessarily.
5. Focus on Outcomes:
Focusing on outcomes and objectives, rather than on time allocation and tasks execution, will also help the worker focus more on results.
6. Design for Scarcity:
When new activities are required, add them to existing roles or create small project teams instead of automatically creating new roles. Scarcity of available time will ensure efficiency in the way the activities are performed, and will most probably allow to more concretely estimate how much time is needed for the activities, exploting the concept of Pareto’s Principle.
An Example: the 4 days week
There’s a lot of discussion in the world about the concept of the 4 days week. To many, this discussion exactly reflects one of the main impacts of Parkinson’s Law. Many jobs are today’s tuned to the 5 days / 40 hours of our standard weekly working time (at least in Europe). Experiments in shortening working time have demonstrated an increase of productivity (or, most probably, a reduction of wasted time). Similarly, the introduction of the 35 hours work week in France also demonstrated some productivity gains.
Conclusion
Parkinson’s Law serves as a caution against the inefficient use of time and resources in both personal and organizational contexts. It highlights the tendency for work to expand to fill the time available, leading to procrastination, complexity, and inefficiency. By understanding this principle, individuals and organizations can take steps to manage time more effectively, set realistic deadlines, and avoid the pitfalls of unnecessary bureaucracy and overwork, as well as design of unnecessary roles.
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