“Agreed on the core issues with some bikeshedding required on the following function names”. Huh?

Usage

This is a word used sometimes in software design, for example it occurs in the ISO C++ committee papers, in the context of having reached consensus on major design issues, referring to some points still to be agreed, with the expectation that the discussions will be animated despite the issues being minor.

The fictional atomic reactor committee on bike sheds

C. Northcote Parkinson is known for his books on British naval history. He also wrote a few books (from 1950’s to 1970’s) that are usually collections of articles that he published earlier in magazines that focus on ideas of management errors/misjudgements, the most famous one being “Parkinson’s Law”:

work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion

One of such stories “High Finance, or the Point of Vanishing Interest” tells the story of a fictional committee with three items on the agenda.

The first item is about awarding a contract of £10,000,000 for building an atomic reactor. Few in the committee understand the issue, and the ones having some understanding are not listened to, the decision is taken in a couple of minutes to award the contract without fully questioning it.

The second item is about a £350 bike shed for the clerical staff. Everyone can picture a bike shed and the amount of £350 is something that they relate to. The committee spends a lot of animated time on it, with the outcome of maybe saving £50 by using a corrugated iron roof.

The last item is about coffee refreshments for the staff. If the bike shed still presented some engineering challenges, really everyone knows about coffee: what it should be, where should it be bought, for how much and how it should be made. The extended discussions consume the remaining of the time, the decision is ask for more information and continue at the next meeting.

The point he’s trying to make is that the committee should have spend most of it’s energy on the large contract for the atomic reactor, but people struggle with complex issues and large amounts of money, spending disproportionate amounts of time on issues that are trivial in comparison, but not necessarily in absolute terms, eventually very small costs will be recognised as trivial by participants.

Critique

The article is subtly discriminatory (e.g. the sexism in the assumption that the committee members are men and the secretary a woman). Also the intent is to be amusing. A much shorter text would be required if the text would have been more serious.

In terms of usage of the term bikeshedding, it’s easy to fall in the trap of treating as bikeshedding what are ultimately also important decisions.

But fundamentally the observation is correct that there are human misjudgements around the amounts/stakes involved, typically in three categories: beyond grasp/comprehension, normal and trivial. This is a topic covered seriously by the likes of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Being aware of the issues helps counteract the biases.