#redirect Parkinson's law
'''Parkinson's law''' states that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." It was first articulated by C. Northcote Parkinson in the book ''Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress'', (London, John Murray, 1958) based on extensive experience in the British Civil Service. The scientific observations which contributed to the law's development included noting that as Britain's British Empire declined in importance, the number of employees at the Colonial Office increased. According to Parkinson, this is motivated by two forces: (1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals" and (2) "Officials make work for each other." He also noted that the total of those employed inside a bureaucracy rose by 5-7% per year "irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done". "Parkinson's law" is also used to refer to a derivative of the original relating to computers: "Data expands to fill the space available for storage"; buying more memory encourages the use of more memory-intensive techniques. It has been observed over the last 10 years that the memory usage of evolving systems tends to double roughly once every 18 months. Fortunately, memory density available for constant dollars also tends to double about once every 12 months (see Moore's Law); unfortunately, the laws of physics guarantee that the latter cannot continue indefinitely. "Parkinson's Law" could be more generalized still as: "The demand upon a resource always expands to fill the resource." ==See also== * Law (principle) * Peter principle * Adages named after people == Reference == * ''Parkinson's Law, or The Pursuit of Progress'', C. Northcote Parkinson, 1957. [http://www.adstockweb.com/business-lore/Parkinson's_Law.htm Parkinson's Law quoted in full] Adages Organizational studies and human resource management Eponymous laws
:This is not a Law in the legal meaning of the word, more of a Satire of a Law of nature. I think that this note is completely unnecessary. Anyway someone should expand this article a bit and add some realworld examples. --:Taw Is this really a satire on the law of nature? Does work not expand the more time that is given? -Adrian. == Example == Here's an example to this that I was told. I forgot the name of the involved company, but it was rather large. What happened is that in order to fight escalating bureaucracy, this company would freeze all its regular reports at the beginning at every new year, and reports would only resume once they were actually requested. Apparently it turned out that each year, 15% of the reports were never requested again. However, by the end of the year, the total volume of reports generated was back to what it was at the end of the previous year - that is to say, the amount of work saved by discontinuing 15% of the reports was eventually compensated for by the invention of new reports. == Another two laws? == There are more laws in the original book. Some of them are to be found on the Web: Parkinson's Laws: 1) Work expands to fill the time available for its completion; the thing to be done swells in perceived importance and complexity in a direct ratio with the time to be spent in its completion. 2) Expenditures rise to meet income. 3) Expansion means complexity; and complexity decay. 4) The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done. 5) If there is a way to delay an important decision the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it. 6) The progress of science is inversely proportional to the number of journals published. [http://michaelhalm.tripod.com/id119.htm] Another one relates buildings and the importance of its institution. I didn't find a real quotation just remember it being there and it is mentioned on http://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volume4/v4conc.htm: Parkinson's laws, namely that the importance of an institution is inversely proportional to the magnificence of the building in which it is housed.
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Words begining with Parkinson\'s_law:
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Parkinson's Law
#redirect Parkinson's law
Parkinson's law
'''Parkinson's law''' states that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." It was first articulated by C. Northcote Parkinson in the book ''Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress'', (London, John Murray, 1958) based on extensive experience in the British Civil Service. The scientific observations which contributed to the law's development included noting that as Britain's British Empire declined in importance, the number of employees at the Colonial Office increased. According to Parkinson, this is motivated by two forces: (1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals" and (2) "Officials make work for each other." He also noted that the total of those employed inside a bureaucracy rose by 5-7% per year "irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done". "Parkinson's law" is also used to refer to a derivative of the original relating to computers: "Data expands to fill the space available for storage"; buying more memory encourages the use of more memory-intensive techniques. It has been observed over the last 10 years that the memory usage of evolving systems tends to double roughly once every 18 months. Fortunately, memory density available for constant dollars also tends to double about once every 12 months (see Moore's Law); unfortunately, the laws of physics guarantee that the latter cannot continue indefinitely. "Parkinson's Law" could be more generalized still as: "The demand upon a resource always expands to fill the resource." ==See also== * Law (principle) * Peter principle * Adages named after people == Reference == * ''Parkinson's Law, or The Pursuit of Progress'', C. Northcote Parkinson, 1957. [http://www.adstockweb.com/business-lore/Parkinson's_Law.htm Parkinson's Law quoted in full] Adages Organizational studies and human resource management Eponymous laws
Parkinson's law
:This is not a Law in the legal meaning of the word, more of a Satire of a Law of nature. I think that this note is completely unnecessary. Anyway someone should expand this article a bit and add some realworld examples. --:Taw Is this really a satire on the law of nature? Does work not expand the more time that is given? -Adrian. == Example == Here's an example to this that I was told. I forgot the name of the involved company, but it was rather large. What happened is that in order to fight escalating bureaucracy, this company would freeze all its regular reports at the beginning at every new year, and reports would only resume once they were actually requested. Apparently it turned out that each year, 15% of the reports were never requested again. However, by the end of the year, the total volume of reports generated was back to what it was at the end of the previous year - that is to say, the amount of work saved by discontinuing 15% of the reports was eventually compensated for by the invention of new reports. == Another two laws? == There are more laws in the original book. Some of them are to be found on the Web: Parkinson's Laws: 1) Work expands to fill the time available for its completion; the thing to be done swells in perceived importance and complexity in a direct ratio with the time to be spent in its completion. 2) Expenditures rise to meet income. 3) Expansion means complexity; and complexity decay. 4) The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done. 5) If there is a way to delay an important decision the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it. 6) The progress of science is inversely proportional to the number of journals published. [http://michaelhalm.tripod.com/id119.htm] Another one relates buildings and the importance of its institution. I didn't find a real quotation just remember it being there and it is mentioned on http://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volume4/v4conc.htm: Parkinson's laws, namely that the importance of an institution is inversely proportional to the magnificence of the building in which it is housed.
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