

Ask HN: Have you experienced extreme cases of Parkinson's law? - cateye

Parkinson&#x27;s law states that: &quot;Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.&quot;<p>I find it quite intriguing to experience very different perception of time and the effort needed to get a task get done. I&#x27;ve worked in environments where everyone expected that huge requirement and scope changes to the whole project was picked up immediately and team members adapted to it within a couple of minutes. (This had a side effect that people felt symptoms of burn out. Also financial unhealthy consequences both for the company and the employees.)<p>At the other hand, I&#x27;ve worked in environments where slightest changes took days and long discussions before accepted and after worked on. Estimations of the tasks were up to a factor of 1000x higher than in the other environment.<p>In both environments people were really busy and hard working. The ambiance and the end result were actually comparable. But the perception was totally different.<p>Do you have similar experiences? Do you prefer the one over the other? What do you think about this subject?
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hbien
I've worked in the first environment and experienced the burn out first hand.
Short deadlines can be a good thing by focusing on core benefits of a product
instead of unnecessary features.

But it's a double edged sword. In the wrong hands, a management team can use
it as an excuse to overwork the team causing burn out and high turnover rates.

