Law of triviality

Parkinson's law of triviality states that organizations give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. The concept comes from C. Northcote Parkinson's 1957 example of a committee spending most of its time debating a bicycle shed while neglecting a nuclear power plant design. This happens because simple topics invite everyone to contribute, while complex ones are deferred to experts. The term 'bike-shedding' became popular in software development after Poul-Henning Kamp's 1999 essay. Behavioral research confirms people spend too much time on small decisions and too little on big ones, partly due to faulty information collection. Related principles include Sayre's law and Wadler's law.