"Work fills the time allotted for it."
Parkinson's Law
Unless you're a 1958 British official, you don't have to follow this law. No job is required to take all the time allotted for it.
A few words about the law
- British historian and brilliant satirist. With the quotation so often seriously called law, begins published November 19, 1955 in The Economist.
The essay has nothing to do with project management or management in general. This is a biting satire, ridiculing the state apparatus, which has been inflated for decades and does not become one bit more efficient.
Parkinson explains the existence of the law by the action of two factors:
- The official wants to deal with subordinates, not rivals
- Officials create work for each other
I highly recommend reading the essay itself, and in a nutshell it looks like this:
An official who feels overburdened hires two subordinates to do his job. He cannot share it with already working colleagues or hire one subordinate and he cannot share it with him - no one needs rivals. Then history repeats itself, its employees hire employees for themselves. And now 7 people are doing the work of one. Everyone is very busy, but neither the speed of work nor its quality is improving.
This situation may be familiar to you, but there are many other reasons why work fills up all the time before the deadline and a little more.
How can this be avoided:
1. Do not think for everyone
Don't expect someone to show respect if you don't show it yourself. If you want the team to be responsible for the deadlines and for the work in general, try to get a real comment, not a forced consent.
2. Don't set a deadline for "yesterday"
First of all, it makes everyone nervous, and you don't want to work among psychopaths. Secondly, it is impossible to be in time βyesterdayβ, which means that the deadlines will be missed. They break once, twice. And what will you do? Will you fire everyone? Hardly. And if nothing happens after that, then what? Why try to be on time and especially earlier? Maniana.
3. Don't try to reach 100% load
For 100% load (actually not), we came up with cars, and a person needs to rest. And also develop and wipe the dust from the keyboard. Why rush to complete the task ahead of schedule if a new one arrives immediately? Then there won't be time for anything.
4. Don't Pretend It's the End of the World After the Deadline
Firstly, this is not so, and see point 2. Secondly, no one wants to get a hat, and everyone is pawning a safety net. The problem is that delays will still be summed up, but advances will not. Well written about it in the book
5. You don't need to record everything
No need to draw a mythical triangle of restrictions and try to squeeze your project into it. If you want the Sagrada Familia, be prepared to wait a hundred years. If you need it by Thursday, be flexible.
6. Don't encourage multitasking
First, it's not productive. Secondly, each solves its own optimization problem. And getting 2 new quests instead of sitting on one ready one doesn't look like a good idea.
7. Don't delay with the approval.
Seriously. It takes 2 days to work, and then another 2 weeks to wait until the manager/customer looks and gives corrections. And then we wonder why everyone is pulling to the deadline.
8. Avoid the big bang.
Don't delay with one big delivery, work incrementally. Not the fact that the work will be done faster, but at least you can use something without waiting for months.
9. Don't bloat the team
If you don't want to be like British officials π
Source: habr.com