What Does Building A Nuclear Power Plant Has To Do With Meeting You Just Had? Bike-Shedding.

I love phrases that are short, yet are precisely describing reality.

Often there is a whole story behind it.

The bike-shedding origin story

The governmental financial committee gathers to approve plans for a nuclear power plant. The plant budget is $100 million.

The committee goes through a proposal.

Technology and construction are so complex and expensive that most people don't understand them. Neither how do things work nor what are the consequences nor possible alternatives.

As nobody is also willing to ask questions not to look stupid. The committee approves the plan in 10 minutes.

There is still some time left, so one of the members calls "Let's do something for the staff" and proposes that a $300 shed should be built for employees riding bikes to work at the power plant.

Everybody has a strong opinion about the size, color, material, and design of the bike shed. So the committee is far from a consensus after a few hours of heated discussion. The topic is then postponed to the next committee meeting.

Does it sound familiar?

People tend to spend a huge amount of time discussing trivial but easy-to-grasp issues. Neglecting at the same time far more important and difficult tasks. This is the meaning of "Parkinson's law of triviality" aka the bike-shed effect.

How to escape bike-shedding

Next time you'll find yourself in a futile discussion over an unimportant topic, call it bike-shedding and explain the concept.

Agree the topic is unimportant and set boundaries e.g. budget/time
Delegate the decision to find the best solution in given boundaries to one person
Get back on track focusing on important topics.

Next time it would be enough to just raise a hand and ask "are we bike-shedding here"?