Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Cyril Parkinson was a British naval historian, and the author of more than 60 books.
When he was a professor in Singapore in 1955, he promulgated, initially in a humorous and satirical way, in an article for the magazine “The Economist”, what would come to be called Parkinson's Law: “The work expands until it fills all the available time for its execution ”.
The theme reached popularity, and in 1957 Parkinson wrote two books on the subject, called: "Parkinson's Law and other studies on management", and "Parkinson's Law, or the search for progress". Saving Changes...
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Parkinson's Law has become so popular that developments and corollaries of this law have emerged, such as “The cost of a work expands until it consumes every available budget”.
Another way of expressing Parkinson's Law, formulated by himself, is: "The busiest man is the one with the most free time".
As a corollary, there is also the Trivia Act: “The time spent on any item on an agenda is inversely proportional to the cost involved”, a law that Parkinson drafted from the observation that the Singapore City Council took six hours to define the hiring one person to work in the public gas field, and two and a half minutes to approve a budget of $ 100 million. Saving Changes...
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
And why does Parkinson's Law occur?
We can say that the less time someone has to perform a task, the less he will be distracted by other aspects.
There will be a tendency to focus on the task, without wasting time.
This is particularly noticeable in "soft", administrative and intellectual tasks, in contrast to "hard" tasks, in which there are indexes to monitor and control performance (linear weld meters, cubic meters of concrete, square meters of paint) . Saving Changes...
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Parkinson's Law - work expandability: impacts
The Critical Chain concept considers that, since there is the Parkinson's Law, that the activities allocated in a schedule must have their term estimated according to their resources and complexity, WITHOUT LEFT.
Instead of associating a time off for each activity, Goldratt recommends that these possible clearances along a stretch of the critical chain be added, and 50% of this value be added to the end of the stretch, as a way to:
1) decrease the comfort of slack (taking 50% of the value)
and
2) making the slack (called buffer) there, shared by all, which leads to a more responsible use of this slack by each of the players. Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
I see the impact of Parkinson's Law more of a risk management consideration than a planning consideration. Parkinson's Law is not a law of physics, it is an observation of the human condition and as such can be influenced. It will happen if you allow it happen. The key is to recognize the potential and impact and provide mitigation measures. One of the mitigating measure may be to adjust the scheduled duration's of activities however I think this is self defeating as artificial constraints are easily recognized and ultimately ignored. The better mitigating measure is to put in place realistic expectations with monitoring and control measures.
I think the point that you are trying to make is that "fail to plan, plan to fail". That mean if you do not adequately judge how long tasks and deliverables are expected to be completed in and factor this into your project schedule then your project will be over budget and late in delivery. Therefore the project manager who is the captain of his ship and knows all the moving parts and how to fix them will have plenty of time on his hands. And it is this experience that project managers actually get paid for not necessarily delivering the project within the agreed objectives and scope.
Daire
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1 reply by Luis Branco
Jan 25, 2020 11:52 AM
Luis Branco
...
Dear Daire
Thank you for participating in this reflection and for your opinion
Interesting what you wrote:
"I think the point that you are trying to make is that" fail to plan, plan to fail "
Saving Changes...
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Jan 25, 2020 10:07 AM
Replying to Peter Rapin
...
I see the impact of Parkinson's Law more of a risk management consideration than a planning consideration. Parkinson's Law is not a law of physics, it is an observation of the human condition and as such can be influenced. It will happen if you allow it happen. The key is to recognize the potential and impact and provide mitigation measures. One of the mitigating measure may be to adjust the scheduled duration's of activities however I think this is self defeating as artificial constraints are easily recognized and ultimately ignored. The better mitigating measure is to put in place realistic expectations with monitoring and control measures.
Dear Peter
Thank you for your opinion
Only Parkinson's Law + Eliyahu M. Goldratt Saving Changes...
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Jan 25, 2020 11:06 AM
Replying to Daire Guiney
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Dear Luis,
I think the point that you are trying to make is that "fail to plan, plan to fail". That mean if you do not adequately judge how long tasks and deliverables are expected to be completed in and factor this into your project schedule then your project will be over budget and late in delivery. Therefore the project manager who is the captain of his ship and knows all the moving parts and how to fix them will have plenty of time on his hands. And it is this experience that project managers actually get paid for not necessarily delivering the project within the agreed objectives and scope.
Daire
Dear Daire
Thank you for participating in this reflection and for your opinion
Interesting what you wrote:
"I think the point that you are trying to make is that" fail to plan, plan to fail " Saving Changes...
