“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” – Cyril Northcote Parkinson – A brilliant satirical essay published on November 19, 1955 in The Economist magazine begins with this quote that is so often seriously called law.
A practical example :
Yesterday, a colleague is busy monitoring the occupation of his resources on one of his projects.
The last check was almost a month old.
Surprise! One of his resources that was allocated to 7 days on his project during this period actually charged 15 days of work !
“But what work did he do on this project? He was not supposed to work so much! Was the initial estimate wrong? Did he commission my project while working on another project ? Now, I have to create a PCR (Project Change Request) and submit it to the IT Change Control Board because the consequence is that the Estimate At Completion of my project will now exceed by more than 10% the initial budget of the project !” .
