Color of the bikeshed
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The color of the bikeshed is a proverbial phrase referring to the apparent ease with which one can get agreement on building a large and complex project (such as a billion-dollar atomic reactor) compared to the difficulty of reaching consensus on building something conceptually simple — because everyone involved actually has an opinion and wants to add it.
The most well-known expression of the idea is C. Northcote Parkinson's Law of Triviality[1], in his spoof of management, Parkinson's Law (1957), which is the source of the bicycle shed metaphor. Parkinson dramatizes his Law of Triviality with a committee's deliberations on a nuclear power plant, then on a bicycle shed (in which a debate emerges over whether the best choice of roofing is aluminum, asbestos or galvanized iron, then over whether the shed is a good idea or not). The committee then moves on to coffee purchasing, a discussion that results in the biggest waste of time and the most acrimony.
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[edit] Explanation
A nuclear reactor is so vastly expensive and complicated that people cannot understand it, so they assume that those working on it understand it. Even those with strong opinions might withhold them for fear of being shown to be insufficiently informed. On the other hand, everyone understands a bicycle shed (or thinks they do), so building one can result in endless discussions: everyone involved wants to add his touch and show that he is there.
A related idea is William James's well-known aphorism "University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." An issue with lives hanging in the balance can clarify and polarize opinions, prompting disputants to set aside petty politics with an eye to the greater good; but with a trivial issue, on which each viewpoint is equally valid, and equally meaningful or meaningless, endless conflict can result – with egos becoming more significant than outcomes. Winning the debate is more important than solving the problem at hand.
The phrase "the bikeshed problem" has often been quoted in collaborative settings such as wikis and open source software projects, where the symptoms are common. People stay quiet on serious technical issues; but when an issue like indentation formatting or naming conventions arises, everyone has an opinion.
[edit] Repopularization
The concept was repopularized by a 1999 email post by Poul-Henning Kamp to the FreeBSD development mailing list. Color was not featured as an argument in Parkinson's original example.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Parkinson's Law, C. Northcote Parkinson], pp. 24-32
