"Let's form a committee!" When you hear these words during a public meeting, a warning light should start flashing, for more often than not Parkinson's law may be coming into play. One of the many precepts from this law states that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. It was first articulated by C. Northcote Parkinson, a British scholar, in the book "Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress," (London, John Murray, 1958). Based on extensive experience in the British Civil Service system, his scientific observations noted, among other things, that as the British empire declined, the number of employees at the colonial office increased. Parkinson claimed this was caused by two forces: One, officials want to multiply subordinates, not rivals; and two, officials make work for each other.

Among many other things, his law is also used to refer to a derivative of the original law relating to computers; namely, data expands to fill the space available for storage (see Moore's Law).

Verification of this law is most readily found in government where bureaucrats usually want subordinates, but not competitors, to help with overwork. In the field of public administration in the United States, it has been widely observed that work tends to increase in importance and complexity in direct proportion with the time to be spent. Politicians and, frequently, taxpayers (the latter with at least an occasional sense of doubt) have assumed that an increased number of civil servants must be the result of an increased amount of work to be performed.

Here is an example, widely used by other writers, of how it works. Let's assume an individual contributor (for example, one who is part of the overhead structure) finds herself overworked. For this real or imagined overwork situation, there are at least three solutions. First, she can simply quit, but this is not a likely outcome given the loss of relatively generous public sector benefits. Secondly, she might request that the work be divided with another employee, but this creates an unwanted rival for promotion. Or thirdly, she might ask for the assistance of two subordinates thus adding to her importance. Assuming the third choice is the one taken, and it usually is, one can further assume that sooner or later one of these two subordinates will also complain about overwork thus creating another round of employment. If you do the math, seven officials will eventually end up doing the work that one did before. To make matters even worse, the two subordinates may be nepotistic hires who in turn may hire other relatives or friends. This is precisely why there are those who are such staunch proponents of doing more with less.

I recently heard one local selectman state that both the "Share the Road" signs (i.e., share with bicycles) and promoted by the ever-so-righteous Rotarians, and the construction of two major rotaries (i.e.,roundabouts) on a local arterial parkway are important issues. The implication was that both were of equal importance. Surely he was not serious.....but he was! The sign issue should not even have been on the table. It was a classic example of where the amount of time given to an issue is so far out of proportion to its importance, it makes one wobble. In this connection, Parkinson not surprisingly laid down a dynamic that said groups spend time on subjects in inverse proportion to the importance of the subject. The issue of rotaries on the aforementioned parkway is indeed important but hopefully will not lead to a study committee which may in turn lead to subcommittees. Instead, the selectmen need to resolve this. Again, warning lights are beginning to flash, though ever so dimly.

For a new and even more negative meaning regarding the wasteful practice of patronage, all one need do is take time to review the gross duplication of effort between the Massachusetts Turnpike and that state's Department of Transportation. Patronage is a phenomena which Parkinson perhaps did not fully take into account but most assuredly would make his eyes roll. Indeed. the public sector in Massachusetts is an exemplar of Parkinson's law gone stark-raving mad. Maybe that's why Massachusetts is called a Commonwealth.

So what say we form a committee to review rotaries or some other subject. Let's schedule meetings, lots of them. Let's analyze the results of these meetings. Let's schedule more meetings to discuss the analyses. Now let's assign priorities and hire some people or "experts" to handle the tasks resulting from the priorities. The hires, of course, will attach great significance to their work and likely will attempt to expand it as far as possible. Their salaries will then go into a line item budget under a cost center entitled, "salaries." When this happens, Parkinson's law has set in and things are no longer a joke.

"By expanding their 'work' to fill the time available, and grabbing at every opportunity for advantage and self-aggrandizement, they've [Congressmen] made their world a better place. But is it their world, or ours? Has the expansion of work been a benefit to you?"

Paul Hein Archives, 2004