Have you ever been in a meeting where a contract worth hundreds of millions of won passed in a few minutes, with applause, while deciding which coffee to stock in the office kitchenette dragged on for well over an hour? Rushing through the truly important decisions while voices grow louder over trivial matters is a sight familiar in almost any organization.
This phenomenon has a name. It is the Law of Triviality, introduced by the British historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson in a book published in 1957. Its core claim is that the time spent on an agenda item is inversely proportional to the sum of money involved.
This article goes through, in order, the satirical meeting scene from which the law arose, why people talk so much about small matters, the nickname it earned in the software world, and tips for avoiding this trap in meetings.
A Meeting That Skims the Big Items and Lingers on the Small Ones
The Story of the Reactor and the Bicycle Shed
In a chapter of “Parkinson’s Law and Other Studies in Administration,” Parkinson sketches an imaginary finance committee. There are three agenda items. The first is a $10 million contract to build a nuclear reactor, the second is building a bicycle shed for clerical staff at a cost of $2,350, and the third is the cost of refreshments, such as coffee, for the committee.
The reactor item is so large and technical that most members do not understand it, and it passes in about two and a half minutes. In front of the bicycle shed, by contrast, a 45-minute debate follows over whether the roof should be aluminum, asbestos, or galvanized iron, and whether it would be better not to build the shed at all. Parkinson sneers that the amount saved in the end will hardly be worth mentioning.
This scene is actually introduced as a side branch of Parkinson’s Law, the principle that gave the book its title: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” So rather than a stand-alone joke, the Law of Triviality is better read as one of a set of observations about how organizations work.
The coffee item takes even longer, occupying 1 hour 15 minutes, and in the end it is postponed to the next meeting with the secretary asked to gather more information. This story is not the result of an actual study but a satire poking fun at bureaucratic organizations, yet it has survived because every reader is reminded of a similar meeting.
Why People Talk More About Small Matters
The bicycle shed story is convincing because it touches human psychology precisely. A reactor is so unfamiliar that people simply trust the experts to have handled it well, but a bicycle shed is something anyone can picture in their head, so everyone wants to add a word.
(1) Confidence that you can understand
When the sum lies within your own life experience and you can picture the shape of the thing, it is easy to feel that your opinion is useful. You stay silent about what you do not know and grow talkative about what you do.
(2) A trace of having contributed
Saying nothing in a meeting is unsettling, as if you merely filled a seat. If the big items have already passed, you want to leave evidence of participation, if only on the small ones.
The same scene is common in our daily lives. People are quiet when the strategy for a new product is being set, but opinions pour in when the menu for the event lunch boxes or the name of a group chat is being chosen. Being wrong costs little, and everyone has tastes, so it is easy to speak up.
Experimental research shows a similar tendency. In a 2021 economics experiment, participants gathered too much information in small decisions that needed only a little, and stopped too early in large decisions that needed a lot. The explanation is that big problems are complex and wear people out in advance, while small problems are easy to understand and so are held on to for a long time.
The Software World’s Nickname: Bike-Shedding
This law spread widely among software developers under the name bike-shedding, taken from the bicycle shed story. It became widely known in 1999 when the Danish developer Poul-Henning Kamp posted a message titled “Why should I care what color the bikeshed is?” to the BSD operating system development community. Afterward the term came into use throughout software development.
On development projects, it is common for the structure of a new feature to be dispatched in a few lines while discussion of small matters such as variable names, code style, and screen colors drags on. Understanding the structure takes long study, but anyone can offer an opinion on names and colors.
When this keeps happening, the truly important design discussion stays shallow and only drains the team’s energy. Small problems do not easily reach a conclusion, yet everyone can add a word, so the argument goes on endlessly.
There are also laws that describe a similar principle under other names.
- Sayre’s Law: the claim that in a dispute, the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.
- Wadler’s Law: the observation that discussions of programming language design concentrate on syntax, the outward form, rather than on meaning.
How to Avoid the Trap in Meetings
Knowing the law does not mean you need to block every trivial discussion. Small matters pile up and can change the experience of work. The problem is the balance between importance and time collapsing, so it is enough to put a few devices in place to restore that balance.
(1) Divide the time in advance
Set an upper limit of time for each agenda item beforehand, and give the biggest items ample time first.
(2) Read the materials beforehand
Share the materials for complex items before the meeting, which reduces cases where an item is waved through just because it feels unfamiliar.
(3) Delegate small decisions
Leave decisions that are easy to reverse and low in impact to one person in charge, and have everyone else share their opinions briefly.
One more point to remember is the role of the person leading the meeting. If the facilitator gently points out that the discussion is running long for the weight of the item, the attendees can also move on without discomfort. It helps to share the understanding that this is not cutting off discussion but saving energy for the important items.
If a discussion seems to be dragging on during a meeting, you only need to ask yourself one thing: how big a difference does this issue make to the overall goal? If it is small, you can just move on to the next agenda item.
A mind that steps further in and examines before big matters, and steps back and delegates before small ones: that is the first step of the Law of Triviality.
