Parkinson's Law
by C. Northcote Parkinson · first published 1968
8mentions
3recommended by
8HN commenters
2009–2023first – last mentioned
38% recommend63% neutral
142 p. : 18 cm. --
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
…checklists require bigger teams, and bigger teams require bigger budgets, and more management attention. Add features! Attach a marketing campaign! Bolt it on to a much larger brand! I need to go read Parkinson's Law again. A work of genius. Anyway, Dropbox succeeded by designing a company where the mission of "building Dropbox and making it succeed" was both necessary and sufficient.
on “Why Dropbox is more popular than other tools with similar functionality” ↗"Parkinson's Law" by C. Northcote Parkinson "The New Industrial State" by J.K. Galbraith
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012” ↗Parkinson's Law may be the greatest business book of all time. If you like business books and you haven't read it you're missing out on one of the true classics of the genre. http://www.amazon.com/Parkinsons-Law-C-Northcote-Parkinson/d...
on “Parkinson's law of triviality” ↗This is one of Parkinson’s Laws: "perfection of planned layout is only achieved by institutions on the point of collapse." In the chapter "Plans and Plants" of "Parkinson's Law" (see http://www.amazon.com/Parkinsons-Law-Cyril-Northcote-Parkins...…
on “The Curse of a New Building” ↗Quite true. I should have italicized Parkinson's Law, the book. Parkinson spends a number of short chapters discussing the expansion of hierarchies, with historical examples.
on “Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?” ↗The bikeshed example is also somewhat misstated. In the original (fictional) story from the book Parkinson's Law, the issue is not that people looking at the design of a nuclear plant spend too much time looking at the bike shed design and not enough looking at things like nuclear safety. The issue is that the committee…
on “Concepts for Your Cognitive Toolkit” ↗Is that in chapter 5 of his book (Parkinson's Law) by chance? If not, could you at least point to the source?
on “Against All Applications” ↗Because of how much time and money is spent on deciding the color of the bike shed of course![1] [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1448236.Parkinson_s_Law
on “Why does nuclear power plant construction cost so much?” ↗