“Parkinson’s law”, first published in an article of 1955, states: work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Is it more than just a cynical slogan? (Image: OJO Images/Rex Features)

IT IS 1944, and there is a war on. In a joint army and air force headquarters somewhere in England, Major Parkinson must oil the administrative wheels of the fight against Nazi Germany. The stream of vital paperwork from on high is more like a flood, perpetually threatening to engulf him.

Then disaster strikes. The chief of the base, the air vice-marshal, goes on leave. His deputy, an army colonel, falls sick. The colonel’s deputy, an air force wing commander, is called away on urgent business. Major Parkinson is left to soldier on alone.

At that point, an odd thing happens – nothing at all. The paper flood ceases; the war goes on regardless. As Major Parkinson later mused: “There had never been anything to do. We’d just been making work for each other.”

That feeling might be familiar to many working in large organisations, where decisions can seem to be bounced between layers of management in a whirl of consultation, circulation, deliberation and delegation. It led Major Parkinson – in civilian dress, C. Northcote Parkinson, naval historian, theorist of bureaucracy and humorist- to a seminal insight. This is “Parkinson’s law”, first published in an article of 1955, which states: work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

Is there anything more to that “law” than just a cynical slogan? Physicists Peter Klimek, Rudolf Hanel and Stefan Thurner of the Medical University of Vienna in Austria think …