Bike shedding: getting caught up in trivial details

My wife is an educator, and over the years, she would often call me and tell me to go through, read, and review presentations and documents for her. I would get this request many days before the actual deadline and not receive the document or the presentation until the 11th hour. When I ask her, she says,' still fine-tuning. ' This sometimes meant she was playing around and trying new pictures on the slides.

When I came across the concept of bikeshedding, playing around with the pictures had a name. Bike shedding, also called Parkinson's Law of Triviality, is a problem that happens when a group focuses too much on small, unimportant details while ignoring bigger, more important ones.

This term originated from a story about a committee tasked with building a nuclear power plant, who spent an inordinate amount of time discussing the color of the bikeshed to be built, while ignoring the more pressing and complex issues related to the construction of the power plant. Bikeshedding can occur in any group decision-making setting, from small teams to large organizations. It is often a result of group dynamics, where individuals feel more comfortable discussing minor details rather than tackling more complex and challenging issues. Discussing minor details is perceived as less risky and less likely to generate conflict within the group.

Then, there is the other side of the coin: Yak shaving. The coding community popularized this, and it is about the seemingly pointless steps you must take to find a meaningful solution to a problem you are facing. I am not from the coding community, but I have procrastinated on many projects because of challenges along the way, and I could not immediately find a solution.

To prevent bike shedding, team leaders and members must establish clear priorities and concentrate on the most crucial problems. This can be done by establishing clear team goals and objectives and then periodically reviewing and reevaluating them. Furthermore, it's critical to define roles and tasks clearly so that everyone is aware of their responsibilities and accountability. This will make it easier to make sure that everyone is working towards the same objective and that the team is not spending time on unimportant things.