The law of triviality is

C. Northcote Parkinson Cyril Northcote Parkinson (30 July 1909 – 9 March 1993) was a British naval historian and author of some 60 books, the most famous of which was his best-seller ''Parkinson's Law'' (1957), in which Parkinson advanced Parkinson's law, stating t ...

's 1957 argument that people within an organization commonly or typically give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. Parkinson provides the example of a fictional committee whose job was to approve the plans for a

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...

spending the majority of its time on discussions about relatively minor but easy-to-grasp issues, such as what materials to use for the staff bicycle shed, while neglecting the proposed design of the plant itself, which is far more important and a far more difficult and complex task. The law has been applied to software development and other activities. The terms ''bicycle-shed effect'', ''bike-shed effect'', and ''bike-shedding'' were coined based on Parkinson's example; it was popularised in the

Berkeley Software Distribution The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berk ...

community by the Danish software developer Poul-Henning Kamp in 1999 and, due to that, has since become popular within the field of software development generally.

Argument

The concept was first presented as a corollary of his broader " Parkinson's law" spoof of management. He dramatizes this "law of triviality" with the example of a committee's deliberations on an atomic reactor, contrasting it to deliberations on a bicycle shed. As he put it: "The time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum

f money F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hist ...

involved." A reactor is so vastly expensive and complicated that an average person cannot understand it (see ambiguity aversion), so one assumes that those who work on it understand it. However, everyone can visualize a cheap, simple bicycle shed, so planning one can result in endless discussions because everyone involved wants to implement their own proposal and demonstrate personal contribution. After a suggestion of building something new for the community, like a bike shed, problems arise when everyone involved argues about the details. This is a metaphor indicating that it is not necessary to argue about every little feature based simply on having the knowledge to do so. Some people have commented that the amount of noise generated by a change is inversely proportional to the complexity of the change. The law of triviality is supported by behavioural research. People tend to spend more time on small decisions than they should, and less time on big decisions than they should. A simple explanation is that during the process of making a decision, one has to assess whether enough information has been collected to make the decision. If people make mistakes about whether they have enough information, they will tend to stop too early for big decisions. The reason is that big decisions require collecting information for a long time. It leaves more time to make a mistake (and stop) before getting enough information. Conversely, for small decisions, where people should stop early, they may continue to ponder for too long by mistake.

Related principles and formulations

There are several other principles, well-known in specific problem domains, which express a similar sentiment. Wadler's law, named for computer scientist

Philip Wadler Philip Lee Wadler (born April 8, 1956) is an American computer scientist known for his contributions to programming language design and type theory. He is the chair of Theoretical Computer Science at the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer S ...

, is a principle which asserts that the bulk of discussion on programming-language design centers on

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...

(which, for purposes of the argument, is considered a solved problem), as opposed to

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy Philosophy (f ...

Sayre's law Sayre's law states, in a formulation quoted by Charles Philip Issawi: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake." By way of corollary, it adds: "That is why academic politics are so bitt ...

is a more general principle, which holds (among other formulations) that "In any dispute, the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake"; many formulations of the principle focus on

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

References

* Karl Fogel, ''Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project'', O'Reilly, 2005, , "Bikeshed Effect" pp. 135, 261–268
also online
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Internet Archive
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* Donelson R. Forsyth, ''Group Dynamics'', Brooks/Cole, 1990, , p. 289 (see extract a
Internet Archive
* Henry Bosch, ''The Director at Risk: Accountability in the Boardroom'', Allen & Unwin, 1995, , p. 92 (see extract a
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* Brian Clegg, ''Crash Course in Personal Development'', Kogan Page, 2002, , p. 3 (see extract a
Google Books
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Google Books
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Google Books
*

Jan Pen Jan Pen (15 February 1921 in Lemmer – 14 February 2010 in Haren, Groningen, Haren) was a Dutch economist, professor and columnist. He is author of several books on economics. Life and work Pen studied at the University of Amsterdam, where in 19 ...

, ''Harmony and Conflict in Modern Society'', (Trans. Trevor S. Preston) McGraw–Hill, 1966 p. 195 (see extract a
Internet Archive
*

Derek Salman Pugh Derek Salman Pugh (31 August 1930 – 29 January 2015) was a British psychologist, business theorist and Emeritus Professor of International Management at the Open University, known for his work in the field of organisational development (OD), and ...

et al., ''Great Writers on Organizations'', Dartmouth, 1993, , p. 116 (see extract a
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* ''The Federal Accountant v. 13 (September 1963 – June 1964)'', Association of Government Accountants, Federal Government Accountants Association, Cornell University Graduate School of Business and Public Administration, p. 16 (see extract a
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* Al Kelly, ''How to Make Your Life Easier at Work'', McGraw–Hill, 1988, , p. 127 (see extract a
Google Books
* Henry Mintzberg, ''Power in and Around Organizations: Dynamic Techniques of Winning'', Prentice–Hall, 1983, , p. 75 (see extract a
Google Books
* ''The Building Services Engineer v.40 1972–1973'', Institution of Heating and Ventilating Engineers (Great Britain), Chartered Institution of Building Services (see extract a
Google Books
* Charles Hampden-Turner, ''Gentlemen and Tradesmen: The Values of Economic Catastrophe'', Routledge, 1983, , p. 151 (see extract a
Google Books

External links

* {{cite web , title = Why Should I Care What Color the Bikeshed Is? , url = http://bikeshed.com/ , work = Frequently Asked Questions for FreeBSD 7.X, 8.X, and 9.X , author-link = Poul-Henning Kamp , first = Poul-Henning , last = Kamp , publisher = FreeBSD , date = 2 October 1999 , access-date = 31 July 2012 Adages 1950s neologisms Triviality Organizational behavior

Argument

Related principles and formulations

See also

References

Further reading

External links