Parkinson’s Law versus Project Risk Management and “doing more with less”.

Parkinson’s Law* states that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”  So what does this imply?  That we are either going to meet our commitments, or miss them – we are not likely to do better than the targets we set.  This is obviously counter to “doing more with less.”  And if we pro-actively take this into account (by setting more aggressive targets), we should be able to reduce project execution risk and support our goal of “doing more with less.”  In my book “Project Risk Management: A Practical Implementation Approach” I expand on how to effectively set targets and expectations.  It is very important to do this in a productive way, for if not, personnel issues can arise and project goals can be easily jeopardized.

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*Parkinson’s Law. (2015, June).  Available at http://www.fluent-time-management.com/parkinsons-law.html