Management Improvement Dictionary: Parkinson's Law

Parkinson's Law is the adage first articulated by Cyril Northcote Parkinson as the first sentence of a humorous essay published in The Economist in 1955:

      Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Related Terms:
  • Timeboxing: the practice of setting a specific amount of time for a task. This practice is significantly related to the idea Parkinson's law addresses and seeks to minimize the waste that effort just to fill the available time can waste. It is also a way to prioritize time among various tasks. And a method to scope the solutions - if you have 1 week the solution can't be one that will take 1 month to do.
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