Law of triviality

[1] Parkinson provides the example of a fictional committee whose job was to approve the plans for a nuclear power plant spending the majority of its time on discussions about relatively minor but easy-to-grasp issues, such as what materials to use for the staff bicycle shed, while neglecting the proposed design of the plant itself, which is far more important and a far more difficult and complex task.

As he put it: "The time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum [of money] involved."

However, everyone can visualize a cheap, simple bicycle shed, so planning one can result in endless discussions because everyone involved wants to implement their own proposal and demonstrate personal contribution.

The reason is that big decisions require collecting information for a long time and working hard to understand its complex ramifications.

Conversely, for small decisions, where people should devote little attention and act without hesitation, they may inefficiently continue to ponder for too long, partly because they are better able to understand the subject.