04 December 2002

Why it is easier to get a power station built than a bikeshed "This is a metaphor indicating that you need not argue about every little feature just because you know enough to do so." Parkinson explains that this is because an atomic plant is so vast, so expensive and so complicated that people cannot grasp it, and rather than try, they fall back on the assumption that somebody else checked all the details before it got this far. Richard P. Feynmann gives a couple of interesting, and very much to the point, examples relating to Los Alamos in his books. ie when everyone has an opinion, things get messy (the opposite is true: when the project is so complex that no-one feels they can have an opinion, then things can go awry). [via vt] 5:13:51 PM     comments