Bikeshedding explained
The metaphor is as follows: Imagine a financial committee meeting to discuss a three-point agenda.
- A proposal for a £10 million nuclear power plant
- A proposal for a £350 bike shed
- A proposal for a £21 annual coffee budget
The committee normally ends up running through the nuclear power plant proposal in little time because it's too advanced to really get into it.
The bike shed proposal takes much longer as everyone knows what it is and has an opinion that they want to air about it.
As the committee moves on to the coffee budget, suddenly everyone is an expert. _Before anyone realizes, they spend longer discussing the £21 coffee budget than the power plant and the bike shed combined.
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The idea is part of this collection:
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Learning to say no
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Similar ideas to Bikeshedding explained
The “law of triviality” or the “bicycle shed effect”
This is the idea that when planning or making decisions, people can often spend more time on the small, inconsequential details than on the major issues.
The original example was of a committee working on the plans for a nuclear power plant but getting distracted by wh...
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