Q 383. What is Parkinson's Law of time management? List down bullet points on how it can be used to improve productivity of a team?

 

 

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Parkinson’s Law: In 1955, British Historian and Author Cyril Northcote published an article that described and defined the natural tendency of officials to make more work for each other. He also mentioned common observation that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.  He used the example of an elderly lady writing a postcard to her niece. Since she has no other work, much obvious simple task takes up entire day. Though he was hinting inefficiency prevalent at bureaucratic level from his studies.

 

A task feels bigger and more difficult the more time you allot. This leads to procrastination and do less important things first, takes mental energy with stress and pressure. If a Project has 2 weeks to complete, its most likely that team will start to put it together in last 2 days. Last minute thing that we all have in projects. Quality of deliverable will be almost same even if you have more time in hand.

 

I would like to discuss its impact in various fields and tips to master and benefit from the law.

 

A. Parkinson law in personal productivity:

 

I find this critical as we can not manage any organisational goal without understanding its impact at individual level.  If you allow a week to complete for something that usually takes 3 hours, it will take a week. Task expands in complexity and takes longer to complete.

 

Common examples: Last day before holiday is always busy, chaotic, feeling exhausted, brain fog, multiple tabs open on screen, not able to focus, failed multitasking. For ex. Writing a book, Preparing for Exam

 

1. Set shorter deadlines -Intense attention for shorter period is often better than extended, lazy attention over a long period of time.
2. Set up time block - Set a timer for start and end time, push yourself to get it done during this time. If you are competitive, then see this as your personal competition that you are trying to improve yourself on this. 100% undivided attention is must. Eliminate distractions.
3. Keep actionable tasks – Activity breakdown to clear tasks with measurable time is key. Avoid broad tasks which have difficulty estimating time required to complete
4. Rule of Five - Begin with 5 most imp things you must do for the day. Stay committed to 5 task list
5. Prioritise - Order 5 imp things in priority. Don’t go to 2nd unless 1^st one is complete.

 

Understanding how our brain perceives time helps make most out of the day by setting shorter time limits which increases focus and making sure we are not wasting our time. Limit time wasting activities - scrolling through social media, reading headlines again and again, checking emails

 

B. Managing teams and Project deadlines:

 

Managing project deadlines is a common challenge as it involves a team to work together towards the goal in that limited time.  Team manager is always found busy, so much so that their most important job of managing the team gets neglected.  A few tips to improve productivity:

 

1. Ensure activity breakdown – Projects always start with detailed project plan, but key here would be to have daily realistic goals, clear ownership and follow up.
2. Create tighter deadlines – Self-reflection, assess your abilities and team’s abilities and estimate accordingly, Identify team’s strengths and weaknesses. Set up ambitious deadlines based on how long it took last time, do we have any time constraints.
3. Analyse team mix – Understand your team mix, introverts and extroverts have different traits and approach to the tasks assigned. Harmonize on the individual strengths and weaknesses to maximize outcome
4. Stop working late - productivity per hour declines sharply if someone works more than 50 hours per week. Encourage team to finish on time.
5. Use 80/20 rule to your advantage - Identify most imp elements, focus on what matters and eliminate non important activities (VA and NVA) review your work, identify more important elements, and drop the rest
6. Track your time - Identify critical tasks and time taken to complete, ROI of the task. Team will find there are activities that does not bring any value
7. Make a time limit rule - Compressed time, for ex. Daily tasks. Make a rule to complete daily tasks in set time
8. Take frequent breaks - During your moments of focused productivity, check how long you can stay highly focused.  Apply “Pomodoro technique" – break down work into intervals and enjoy the break

 

C. Bureaucracy and demand management:

 

Two of his findings indicate organisations have tendency to expand:

- Officials wants to multiple subordinates to avoid direct competition

- Officials make unnecessary work for each other

 

While this is not true everywhere but sounds familiar too i.e. without considerable increase in workload, we have layers of management that continue to grow. Usually companies start with flat hierarchy, as they grow, they hire subordinates, and a pyramid starts to grow. As the pyramid gets large, it gets expensive.  

1. Create awareness - Companies should be more aware and transparent of time spent on all kind of activities
2. Maximise value – Through understanding of value added and non-value added activities
3. Demand and capacity management – Review demand for its relevance, efficiency possibility. Simple example of resource back fill without assessment of workload
4. Consistent pyramid reviews - Revisit organisation structure against the set strategy and goals, ROI of the role

 

Conclusion:

 

We can get more done in less time using Parkinson’s law. This gives a sense of achievement, allows better time management, focusing on one activity at a time. Important in today’s time when we all work from home, dealing with conflicting priorities between home and office chores. Key to getting it done is Commitment of building daily structures, breakdown of activities and adhering to time blocks.

Parkinson's law is known for its famous statement i.e. "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". This law is also applied into growth of bureaucracy in an organization. Cyril Northcote Parkinson published this law in one of his famous books i.e. The Economist in year 1955. Current form of the law is not the one to which Parkinson referred initially, but rather it was a mathematical equation describing the rate at which bureaucracies expand over the period of time.

 

The thought that triggered this law was “Increase in the number of the employees at Colonial Office of British empire though there was considerable decline in the number of colonies that the office has to administer. He thought over the same and explained this growth primarily due to 2 reasons i.e. i) An official wants to multiply the subordinates, not rivals and ii) Official make work for each other. He also noticed that number employed in a bureaucracy increased by 5-7% per year though the work has not increased at all or even if decreased as depicted in formula below :

 

 

The Law not only applies to individuals, but also teams, organizations, armed forces, universities, corporations etc.

 

 

 

Famous Corollaries derived from Parkinson’s law :

 

i)  Work complicates to fill in the available time

ii)  If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do

iii) Work contracts to fit in the time we give it

iv) In the world of computers , Data expands to fill the space available for storage

v)  In corporate offices, In ten hours a day you have time to fall twice as far behind your commitments as in five hours a day

 

Examples / Evidences of Parkinson’s law in day to day tasks / events :

 

i) An elderly lady can spend a whole day merely composing and sending a postcard. An hour spent to find postcard, another hour in looking for spectacles, an hour and a half in composition of the same, and another thirty minutes in deciding whether to wear a coat or not when heading to the postbox. However a busy person could complete the same task in a few minutes.

ii) Sometimes we see this also in the game of Cricket, teams usually play all the overs (50 overs) even to chase a small target (200 / 250 runs) and in T20-T20 they make same runs in 20 overs as well. Again Parkinson coming into the play here.

iii) In a construction projects, if Labor is per day basis, same amount of work takes almost double of the time than the contract basis work. Clearly Parkinson coming into picture.

iv) In Engineering degree / programs, students cover the same amount of syllabus at last night of the exam that was supposed to be done in the complete semester.

v)  During Deepawali / festivals, if we start cleaning / decorating our houses 2 weeks before or 2 days before, there would be almost same amount of the output / result that will reflect at the day of Deepawali.

vi)  We see often in Bollywood movies or typical Indian serials that they keep on pulling the story too much to either complete the 3 hours of movie or to extend to the maximum episodes in a serial. Again, Parkinson law is writing its script here.

vii) During travel to a particular place, we see sometime we take more time than required but same distance in case of any emergency or if less time is available gets traveled in lesser time too. Again it’s the Parkinson effect !

viii) In consulting assignments, if the billing is per day basis, team take more than required time to complete the same amount of work / assignment than they take if Billing is fixed / assignment.

 

How to use Parkinson’s law to Improve the Team’s Productivity ?

 

i)    Make deadlines for everything for the completion e.g. all the activities in project.

ii)    Break down your project into tasks and Measure the each activity time that it normally take to complete (Industry sources, estimation techniques e.g. Planning Poker in Agile etc., surveys etc.) like we normally do in project management as WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)

iii)  Allocate the time to team as per the realistic time it takes and do not allocate without any logic or basis the instincts but there shall be some measurement in place. Scope of work must be clear.

iv)  Track the time taken by the team to complete the tasks.

v)   Take small breaks to improve upon the productivity and keep yourself aligned to activity.

vi)  Make your team aware what is the definition of done or the completion

vii) Challenge the tea and Next time, when you give the same activity to team, reduce the time to half to complete the same activity and you may offer the incentives to do the same or early finisher will get the high incentives – Constantly push the team for higher efficiency.

viii) You will wonder that the team is able to complete the same in half of the time than they took initially and also learning curve is coming into picture. Also, the team wont be distracted by the distractions around as they have a tight deadline in hand.

ix)  It shall be clear to team what to do next or task to pick up post completion of a task.

 

Ways to improve Productivity :

i) Time Boxing : It’s important that you focus on time instead of tasks. This concept is known as time boxing. It involves setting / allocating a particular amount of the time to work on task, regardless of complexity. Tesla CEO Elon Musk  uses this strategy to get more done in less time. He’s famous for his ability to handle / juggle between multiple projects and accomplish his goals despite of his quite hectic schedule.

ii)  Tow minutes Rule : This is a basic rule of the Getting Things Done (GTD) method, created by productivity consultant David Allen. It works on the principle that any task we can perform in less than two minutes must be completed immediately, rather than be scheduled or postponed.

iii) Follow Pareto Principle , ABC techniques for prioritization of your tasks

 

Its rightly described by Parkinson in below sentence :

 

“It is not the business of the botanist to eradicate the weeds. Enough for him if he can tell us just how fast they grow” - C. Northcote Parkinson

Parkinson's law: The amount of work which needs to be done gets adjusted to the time available for its completion.

 

Example:

1) Shopping at a Super Market:
Even though we have a list of items which needs to be purchased, excessive time is spent basis availability of individuals ie time available with him for shopping.

 

When there is urgency, the same list of items are purchased in very less time ie again basis availability of time of individuals

 

2) Development of Software projects:
When buffer time is included in development of software projects, the project team spends more time in looking
at additional features, but finally end up with the same features due to difficulty in including them due to inappropriate
design with in the given time.

 

The development team will only focus on development of given features if the timelines are provided appropriately
basis requirements.

 

Considering above, productivity can be improved from below points.

a) Understand requirements & Set Goals
Understand requirements / expecatations from the project/task and set quantifiable goals appropriately basis business impact

 

b) Define in-scope & out of scope
Clearly define scope on what needs to be done and what is not in scope for the project/task

 

c) Resource Management with roles and responsibilities
Aligning skilled resources for respective tasks helps them to directly get on to their job/task.  Unskilled resources
might spend too much time in just finding out on - what / how it should be done.

 

Define the role of all the team members, so there is no confusion or ambiguity on expectations from each of them.

 

d) Identify Trade-off, dependencies & create a plan with milestones/timelines for everything
Identify dependencies with in project early, so that you can plan alternatives incase of any uncertainity.

 

Any project/task without a timeline, may end up getting themselves de-prioritized as team might look at other tasks/projects which they feel is important for delivery.

Parkinson’s Law communicates that work expand to fill the time available for its completion. It means ‘How long you work on something depends almost entirely on the amount of time you have to do it.

This is can also be proven with the studies that the smaller team were most efficient in delivering result in quick time as compare to large teams as Later waste their most time is discussion and other non-value added points.

One of the best proverb use to define in social scenario is “ Officials make more work for each other” This is also one of the classical example seen in industry also.

 

It can also be seen through use of Effort and time Analysis.

 

 

 

How to use it to Improve Productivity of Team?

•  Set a target and Deadline    : It is one of the important aspect of driving team efficiency , As you give deadline based target. It help teams to drive the task and not making their mind to make anything happen. So set and aggressive deadlines and make it better over the journey.
• Limit task to the important than trivial few. – Pareto principle ( 80/20 Rule ) should be applied to the task management . The things which matter most should not be at the mercy of which matter least.
• Kill the minor time killers – There are certain minor time killers like big mail , extra reading which kill the productivity , This need to be implemented not only in you but also in the team.

What is Parkinson’s Law?

In 1955, Cyril Northcote Parkinson, a British historian and author, mentioned in an essay that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. He called this theory Parkinson’s Law. Over the years, his theory has become a success in business theory regarding the organisation of work tasks.

Why does this happen and what are its impact?

According to Parkinson’s Law, instead of working efficiently to do more in less time, we lengthen the process which is a natural tendency of human beings. This makes us delay our work and noticeably our productivity tumbles.

Though you know the amount of time set for a task to be completed, you tend to leave it to the very last minute. This is called procrastination which is a key player in Parkinson’s Law. While you allocate too much time for a task, you tend to waste all the precious time that could have been productively used in other areas. The extra time allocated and spent doesn’t necessarily reflect in the outcome of the work as well Majority of people will get tensed and stressed out before they really get around doing the work and will disguise of working well under pressure.
 

How to overcome and improve productivity?

Combating Parkinson’s Law is not something that can happen without cautious efforts. A good starting point would be to start assuming that a task or work doesn’t have to be completed by necessarily consuming all of the allocated duration. Generically tested and applied productivity and time-management principles could be adopted to optimize time.

Here are some steps that you need to follow to implement it in your work life.

a)     Use a time-blocking technique: This is about assigning specific blocks of time to each activity. This technique forces us to allocate specific time for each of the scheduled tasks to avoid interruptions and distractions while doing the task. For example, you may set allocate 45 minutes to prepare an analysis report, 5 minutes to review and reply to emails, another 45 minutes to continue with the report, 10 minutes coffee break and so on. This will help stay focussed on the specific tasks and avoid any procrastination.

Apply the two-minute rule: This is a basic rule of the Getting Things Done (GTD) method, developed by productivity consultant David Allen. It works on the principle that any task we can perform in less than two minutes should be completed immediately, rather than rescheduling or postponing. The duration

a)     may vary depending on context, however the principle remains same: do what you can do right away and avoid postponing it. For example, replying to an email, forwarding an available record to a colleague and so on.

b)     Follow the Pareto principle: Often referred to as the 80/20 rule, this principle states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort applied to a task or project. This means that a majority of our tasks have less impact on the end result, whereas the most important result is produced in a shorter timeframe. The challenge here is to identify those tasks that are most important and the assigned them to the 20% so as to ensure to achieve the result in the shortest possible time.

c)      Create your own method: All the techniques above propose generic approaches, however you may tailor a method specifically to meet your challenges and limitations. Applying any of the renowned time-management techniques, you may create a method that seamlessly fits your daily activity and your requirements. For example, if you are finding it hard to overcome distractions, create suitable strategies and routines to overcome. Similarly if you tend to procrastinate, develop a system with realistic time blocking for tasks and ensure sticking to it.

 

Parkinson's Law:

Parkinson's Law states that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". Parkinson’s Law refers to the tendency among people to finish their tasks/work only just in time for the deadline even though they are capable of completing it earlier.

Parkinson’s Law can be used to improve the productivity of the team by:

• Set realistic and appropriate deadline: It’s important to find the balance while setting deadline for the project. The deadline for the project or the work should be realistic and appropriate as too tight deadline leads to stressed team but too relaxed deadline brings inefficiency within the team.  
• Identify milestones within the project: Projects should have defined milestones and work within these milestones can be considered as small projects with deadline. These deadlines keep the team focused and on track with the milestone deadline in mind rather than seeing the whole task and getting overwhelmed.
• Review the project at milestones: Milestone review helps in maintaining the momentum of the project and in avoiding work to get pending towards the deadline for the project.
• Evaluate the Schedule regularly: If at any point, it is observed that some task can be completed quickly and does not need larger deadline, schedule time to complete the task can be redefined.

Time management is psychological and Parkinson’s Law of time management states that work inflates to fill in the time allotted for its completion. E.g. If you have 2 hours to cook a meal you will take complete 2 hours to finish, whereas if you had a set deadline of 1 hour then you can manage the same task in 1 hour as well.

                                                                                                     

     

 

Therefore it is necessary to follow the following points in order to use Parkinson’s Law to enhance productivity –

1.  Set Deadlines/Targets – Yes it is important to trust your team to finish a set of tasks assigned to them but at the same time it is also necessary to set deadlines for each of the assigned tasks, otherwise they are most likely to lose direction, procrastinate and take any number of hours without any logical explanation.

 

2. Set the Right Expectations – Individuals and Businesses must know how to manage time efficiently, hence one should be clear about what is the expected outcome and the correct approach to reach there. This would ensure waste reduction and enhance efficiency and productivity. Parkinson's Law states that clear objective is very important to follow the right route without wasting time on unnecessary things.

 

3. Track/Monitor and Analyze – What gets measured gets done, therefore keeping that in mind it is essential to track tasks, monitor them and conduct an effective Time Analysis. Based on the historic data, Control Charts can be prepared, this would ensure realistic and achievable deadlines are set in the future and would also assist in effective Capacity Utilization Analysis.

 

4. Share Feedback – Share timely analysis with all the team members to highlight their current performance in the form of efficiency/productivity and effectiveness levels, which would ensure that they don’t lose track/sense of time in any manner.

 

4 Day Work Week – The 4 Day Work Week model is successful in many countries now and surprisingly has resulted in enhanced productivity which can be explained now based on Parkinson’s Law of time management explained above.

 

 

 

"Work expands to fill the time available for its completion." a job takes all the available time before getting finished.  The idea of Parkinson’s Law is to do a job in less time, without compromising quality over quantity.

Time Management

     We all have a common opinion that staffs complete tasks in the time assigned, not before. Staffs give themselves extended than required because they feel the essential to add cushion time. If you give a staff a weeks’ time, to finish a two hours job - it will take a week, but lesser time.

How we can improve the productivity of the team using this law :

1.     Allot accurate/realistic amount of time to a job

2.    Always focus on getting the job done rather then allotted time to perform a job

3.    Have a stringent deadline with no scope to extend

4.    Have the job broken into smaller and set deadlines for each

5.    Create backups to handle jobs on behalf of another

6.    Make use of Dead time

Parkinson’s Law: Its Impact on Time Management

 

In 1955, appearing as the opening line for the first time in an article for The Economist and later in Parkinson’s book, Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress - Cyril Northcote Parkinson made the remark - Work stretches to fill the time that is available for its completion. That statement defines Parkinson’s Law. The statement can easily be applicable to most of our regular duties. The principle states that the more time allocated to a task, the longer it takes to finish.

He was qualified to make such a statement, as having already worked in the British Civil Service and going through the firsthand experience of how bureaucracy exists. Bureaucracy if defined, itself is a by-product of our culture, credit goes to the belief that working harder is better than working smarter and faster.

Example, we have an assignment to be due in one week, but we wait until the last two days to finish it. Technically, this task took one week because that is what we gave it. Seeing as we completed the paper in two days, it means that we should have defined the time of two days duration for that task. Most of us are already familiar with this law; but we just don’t know it how to use it effectively. 

If employees are able to analyze their past activities, they can pinpoint instances when Parkinson’s Principle was at work.

How Parkinson’s Law Affects Productivity

The biggest impact of Parkinson’s Principle is the Procrastination. When we set aside too much time for a particular task, we waste precious time that could be used in other areas. 

Even if we don’t acknowledge it, we all are procrastinators. We all wait till the last minute to tackle a task in the guise of ‘working well under pressure?’ This is also a kind of procrastination. This happens when we believe that we have more than sufficient time to complete an activity, even if the said activity is supposed to just take one hour to complete, but we give it three hours, that is how long it will last.

According to Parkinson’s Law concept, the task will increase in complexity to fill that apportioned time. The extra time that we spend doesn’t necessarily reflect in the output. This is because majority of people will fret, tense and stress about the job before they get around to doing it. 

The productivity of the workforce is very critical, when running any kind of business. We want the employees to meet their responsibilities in the most efficient ways possible. Spending the crucial time only on checklists boosts productivity.

How to Improve Time Management

So, now we know what Parkinson’s Law is. The main Question arises, how do we use that lesson to change how the way we do things? 

In order to avoid wastage of time, Effective time management is essential. The initial step is to start by cutting deadlines, while creating a to-do list or while planning for a project, we must ensure that we allocate the necessary time and to eliminate any opportunity of procrastinating. Short deadlines forces workers to focus on the important tasks and fundamentals, by doing this, we will be able to maximize the available time as much as possible to ensure that the job is complete. However, deadlines must be kept reasonable. The task should be thoroughly evaluated so that we can set aside enough time for it to complete. 

How can we perform more tasks in less time?

A simple way to combat Parkinson’s Law is to change our mindset by not thinking for finishing a task we must use all our allotted time.

Productivity and time-management techniques can really help when trying to optimize your time.

Productivity and Time Management Techniques

 Time-Blocking

This technique is about assigning specific intervals or blocks of time to each task.

GTD (Getting Things Done): 2 Minute Rule

 This is a simple principle which states that any task which can be performed in less than two minutes must be completed immediately, rather than adding it to the scheduled or added to a to-do list.

 

Pareto principle

This principle is also known as the 80/20 rule, it states that 80% of results comes from just 20% of the effort. It means majority of work has less impact on the final result. 

Pomodoro Technique

This technique is a 25-minute focused work sprints followed by a short break of 5 minutes to help in reducing mental fatigue and sustain concentration.

Eliminating time wastage and enhancing productivity

 

Efficient and proper planning of resources or manpower helps in eliminating time wastage and enhancing productivity. For one, getting and selecting the right people for particular and appropriate roles. Supervisors, Workers, Foremen with the right and appropriate skills for the assigned tasks knows where to start so task management is the key step. They will not spend their time trying to find out how to approach a task. Plan the appropriate resources required for the job. If a project is required to need a new equipment, it should be got beforehand. By doing this, team members won’t have to spend their crucial time trying to find what they need.

If we are to meet tight deadlines, knowing that accountability is key thing. Whether a worker is alone or part of a team, a degree of accountability and responsibility helps a great deal. If a project gets stuck due to any kind of issue, there should be an effective and practical way to deal with it. Knowing who to hold responsible when the deliverables are not met.

Parkinson’s Law states that the more time we spend for a particular task, the longer it takes to be completed. Individuals and businesses must learn how to manage time efficiently and in an appropriate manner. Tools like the 80-20 rule, GTD (Getting things done), Pomodoro technique and checklists can help with time management on all levels.

 

 

Parkinson’s Law of time management was coined by Cyril Parkinson. This law showcases the tendency of people to be inefficient with the time that they require for a certain task.

The more time a person is given to complete a task, the more inefficient they are with the time. To rephrase Parkinson’s Law, the work will be completed according to the deadline allotted to it.

For example, take an entry level Business Computing class of 180 first year university students, the main project has a deadline of five weeks. The number of students who complete the project in the first week can be counted on one hand, while no more than 10 to 20 students complete the project with one week to spare. The vast majority of students will work piecemeal at it and then spend the last three days before the deadline to complete the project. We can see Parkinson’s law in action, majority of the students are inefficient with their time.

We can infer certain things from Parkinson’s law.

1)     Extra time does not correlate to a better job. For example, students who turn in their projects late most probably will not do a good job even though the amount of time they had to work on the project is more than their peers who turned the project in on time.

2)     A fair amount of tasks are allotted more time than what they really need, in order to be accomplished. The project is allocated five weeks while only one week of actual work is needed.

3)     Work is evaluated by meeting the goal and not by the time allotted to the work. A student’s project is graded according to it being completed correctly and not how much time it took.

In order to improve the productivity of a team and take advantage of Parkinson’s Laws

1)     Create goal-oriented tasks instead of time-based tasks.

2)     Keep ambitious deadlines as the task is most likely going to take less than expected time to complete it.

3)     Progressively reduce the allotted time to a task to find the best balance between time and quality.

Source: Consuunt, Parkinson’s Law, Link: https://www.consuunt.com/parkinsons-law/

The Parkinson Law is stated that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. The fact that the law was not stated as a law when it was published. In the year 1955, Cyril Northcote Parkinson wrote an essay in “The Economist” about his experience in the British Civil Service. His first sentence “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” became a famous law over the period. Basically, the law explains managing time.

The intended meaning of the law is we have been utilizing the total time as we had planned to complete a task. The time to do a task whether it can be 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 days or 10 months etc. how we planned to complete it. In the real scenarios, two awful practices when we planned to work on a project. 1) We have not been using the whole planned time fully to complete a planned task. 2) We have been working till the last minute. Similarly, we have been experiencing few positive scenarios also. i.e., we have been applying Parkinson’s Law for such critical scenarios. The critical scenarios are forcing us to work as Parkinson stated. We have been identifying the ways or techniques to complete a task in a day where we had planned to complete a task in a week. This is all about the mindset of human beings. If we break out a day by 10 minutes of time incremental, then the efficiency of work will be so high. We would be avoiding the quiet number of 10 minutes waste on the day.

 

 

The principle is more time you have more time you waste. 

Question. What is Parkinson's Law of time management? List down bullet points on how it can be used to improve productivity of a team?

 

Answer.

What is Parkinson’s Law of Time Management?

Parkinson’s Law in simple words that “the amount of work required adjusts to the time available for its completion”. Parkinson’s Law says that people in an organization often spend unnecessary time and give attention to small matters.

There’s also social loafing, in a group projects “people tend to put ¼ efforts than they would put on their own solo project.”

 

Parkinson’s Law benefits to increase the productivity?

This law says that whenever there is kick off meet to initiate the project, it becomes successful when we have cleared out the expectations with everyone on how the team will approach on project asks. Here are the few basic and important asks those should be well considered during kick off meetings:

1.       Well defined the project vision and problem statement – it is always important for a project success to define the clear importance or impact associated with the project or task to entire team

2.       Well defined roles and responsibilities by using DACI framework

D = Driver. The one person who is responsible for collating all the important information to share with stakeholders, leaders and connecting with them continuously to give status updates and getting their thoughts or visions as per the agreed timeliness. This person may or may not be the project’s full-time owner.

A = Approver. The one person who makes the decision.

C = Contributors. They have knowledge or expertise that may influence the decision (i.e., they have a voice, but no vote).

I = Informed. They are informed of the final decision.

3.       Well defined project in and out of scope – Project team and owner should agree upfront about what is in and out of scope for the project.

4.       Well defined project tasks or trade-offs - like project timing, scope, and budget are the most common areas to be considered and prioritized

5.       Well defined and agreed timelines – agreement on project milestones and deadlines for various project tasks and sprints

 

Parkinson's Law: It states that work expands itself so as to fill the time that is available for it's completion. 

 

Cyril Northcote Parkinson is the father of Parkinson's Law in 1955 and he attributed it to the growing bureaucracy in any organisation

 

What it means?: This means that if you allot 1 month to complete a task or an initiative, which ideally could have been completed in 2 weeks time.. Then the work will expand itself, by becoming more complicated or daunting and thus will demand the entire 4 weeks period to complete itself.

 

E.g. This is generally seen in a Government mega project, where the project just takes never ending time to compete itself, and if this given to a private contractor with some incentives, it can be completed in much less time.

 

We can use this law to our benefit in following ways:

 

1. Do better judgement of the tasks: While doing time allotment, we need to do proper estimate and allot only the required This will ensure that we are able to complete the task well within time.

 

2. Assign aggressive timelines: While do the time allotment, assign half the time required to complete the task.. This will ensure that we complete the task way ahead of time.

 

3. Assign Hard deadlines: While setting the deadline, set it as something which can be modified or not met.. Something which is given by our boss or head of the company etc.

 

4. Push the team to think innovatively: Giving crunch timelines will encourage the team to work smarter than harder, thus will bring out innovative things or automation or a complete disruption of the process.

 

5. Move away the tasks which are unproductive in nature (crush the cockroaches of the productivity world): Task such as email reading, feed reading should not be prioritized, instead we should prioritize the more important or critical tasks

 

6. Prioritization: Crunch timelines which encourage the team to prioritize and thus bring out the best planning out of them.

 

7. Bust the traditional ways of doing things: Crunch timelines also bust the myths that we should accomplish the things in a traditional way and thus new process or methods are born which are more effective and efficient. 

 

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion" - British naval historian and author Cyril Northcote Parkinson wrote this opening line for an essay in 1955, but the concept known as 'Parkinson's Law' still lives on today.

 

 

What the law means that - Work spreads only that much to the extent of time it takes to be completed. i.e. If one year is available, it will take one year, if 1 month is available it will take one month, If one week is available, it will take one week.

 

Time is the most valuable asset. Procrastination (intentionally delaying the actions) is the biggest enemy of success.

 

 

Parkinson's Law helps us learn how to be more productive with time. Whether we tend to procrastinate or we tend to over analyses – Our time is probably being wasted. The strategy of Parkinson’s law can help quickly complete any task or project.

The idea here is that when we give ourselves strict time constraints, we can get more work done in less time. For e.g. If we allow ourselves a week for a task that take only 3 hours, then psychological the task will expand in its complexity and seem more difficult then we will take the entire week.

But by trimming the responsibilities down to bare minimum and doing those tasks with maximum efforts, then we would produce high quality work and also free up our time to spend in other areas. Strict deadlines forces us to make things happen.

 

 

That why its important to estimate how much time each task will take you to complete so that we could use it in the most effective way. 

The most popular time management approach is time blocking. This approach basically works on Parkinsn’s law. When we are time blocking, we have to allocate time for each activity and that requires to estimate how time each activity will take.

What happens when we block time to accomplish a task is – Intention building.

 

Few more points on this approach on how it can be used to improve productivity of a team;

·        Create tight deadlines

·        Discourage working late

·        Use 80/20 rule to the project's/business's advantage

·        Maintain Time tracker

·        Make a time limit rule

·        Discourage/Limit time wasting activities

·        Encourage team members to take frequent breaks

I enjoyed reviewing these answers. There are some very interesting examples (cooking, Diwali cleaning, game of cricket etc.) of work expanding to fill time and at the same time there are some innovative methods suggested to use it to improve team's productivity (explore your own method).

While the question and hence the answers focus on improving team productivity, I would also like to highlight the drawback of Parkinson's Law where unrealistic deadlines are set for tasks (two sides of the same coin )

 

Sai Kotari's answer has been selected as the winner for providing multiple different ways of improving the team productivity.