Parkinson’s law of triviality
E656396
adage
cognitive bias description
management theory concept
organizational behavior concept
sociological concept
Parkinson’s law of triviality is the adage that people in organizations tend to give disproportionate attention and time to trivial issues while neglecting more important, complex matters.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Parkinson’s law of triviality canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T7329728 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Parkinson’s law of triviality Context triple: [Wirth’s law, relatedTo, Parkinson’s law of triviality]
-
A.
The Dilbert Principle
The Dilbert Principle is a satirical business book that critiques corporate management and workplace culture, expanding on themes from the Dilbert comic strip.
-
B.
Law of the Maximum
The Law of the Maximum was a French Revolutionary price-control measure that fixed maximum prices on essential goods to curb inflation and protect the urban poor.
-
C.
Drucker stability postulate
The Drucker stability postulate is a fundamental criterion in plasticity theory that asserts materials must not exhibit negative incremental work, ensuring stable and physically realistic material behavior under loading.
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D.
The Bureaucratic Phenomenon
The Bureaucratic Phenomenon is a seminal sociological study by Michel Crozier that analyzes how bureaucratic organizations function, resist change, and generate dysfunctions within modern society.
-
E.
Aitken’s Law
Aitken’s Law is a phonological rule in Scots and Scottish English that governs when vowels are pronounced long or short depending on their phonetic and morphological environment.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Parkinson’s law of triviality Target entity description: Parkinson’s law of triviality is the adage that people in organizations tend to give disproportionate attention and time to trivial issues while neglecting more important, complex matters.
-
A.
The Dilbert Principle
The Dilbert Principle is a satirical business book that critiques corporate management and workplace culture, expanding on themes from the Dilbert comic strip.
-
B.
Law of the Maximum
The Law of the Maximum was a French Revolutionary price-control measure that fixed maximum prices on essential goods to curb inflation and protect the urban poor.
-
C.
Drucker stability postulate
The Drucker stability postulate is a fundamental criterion in plasticity theory that asserts materials must not exhibit negative incremental work, ensuring stable and physically realistic material behavior under loading.
-
D.
The Bureaucratic Phenomenon
The Bureaucratic Phenomenon is a seminal sociological study by Michel Crozier that analyzes how bureaucratic organizations function, resist change, and generate dysfunctions within modern society.
-
E.
Aitken’s Law
Aitken’s Law is a phonological rule in Scots and Scottish English that governs when vowels are pronounced long or short depending on their phonetic and morphological environment.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
adage
ⓘ
cognitive bias description ⓘ management theory concept ⓘ organizational behavior concept ⓘ sociological concept ⓘ |
| addresses |
inefficient collective decision-making
ⓘ
misallocation of attention in organizations ⓘ organizational focus on low-stakes details ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs | bikeshedding ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
academic committees
ⓘ
boards ⓘ committees ⓘ corporate meetings ⓘ nonprofit organizations ⓘ online communities ⓘ public administration ⓘ software development teams ⓘ |
| coinedBy | C. Northcote Parkinson NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| coreIdea |
discussion time is inversely related to the importance or cost of the issue
ⓘ
group members avoid complex topics that require expertise or effort ⓘ people feel more comfortable discussing simple topics they understand ⓘ |
| describedIn | the book "Parkinson’s Law, and Other Studies in Administration" NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| describes |
disproportionate attention to simple, low-impact matters
ⓘ
neglect of complex, high-impact issues in group discussions ⓘ tendency of groups to spend excessive time on trivial issues ⓘ |
| field |
behavioral economics
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
management science ⓘ organizational theory ⓘ social psychology ⓘ |
| goal |
encourage focus on high-impact decisions
ⓘ
highlight wasteful use of collective time ⓘ |
| hasExample |
board focusing on parking layout instead of financial risk
ⓘ
committee debating coffee quality more than budget allocation ⓘ team arguing over logo color instead of product strategy ⓘ |
| illustratedBy | example of a committee spending more time on a bike shed than on a nuclear reactor ⓘ |
| influenced |
discourse on productivity in organizations
ⓘ
popular discussions of "bikeshedding" in software engineering ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1957 ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
Parkinson’s law
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
analysis paralysis ⓘ decision-making bias ⓘ groupthink ⓘ law of triviality NERFINISHED ⓘ meetings management ⓘ status quo bias NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| usedAs |
argument for agenda prioritization
ⓘ
argument for timeboxing discussions ⓘ critique of inefficient meetings ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Parkinson’s law of triviality Description of subject: Parkinson’s law of triviality is the adage that people in organizations tend to give disproportionate attention and time to trivial issues while neglecting more important, complex matters.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.