We’ve all heard the 80/20 rule right? The theory that 80% of the work results in 20% of the result and the other 20% of the work results in 80% of the result? It’s called the Pareto Principle or the law of the vital few or the principle of factor sparsity.
It’s a nice neat truism, that strangely bears itself out in the real world. Approximately 20% of the population pay 80% of the tax in most economies — 80% of the reward coming from 20% of the populace. Microsoft say that if they can fix 20% of the bugs, 80% of people would be happy — 20% of the effort resulting in 80% of the reward.
It even works with the most mundane of matters. Think about your wardrobe and compare it to what you wear. If you’re like most people, you wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time and the other 80% of your clothes you wear just 20% of the time.
But I digress. Read more about the Pareto Principle over at Wikipedia.
Here’s the thing: When you’re working on some sort of project that has a finite scope, at the time you have done 80% of the work, there is only 20% of the final result in any tangible form. It’s discouraging if you only look at the result obtained, but hugely encouraging if you focus on the work left to do.
Consider all the effort that goes into planning a wedding: there’s nothing to show for it other than a pile of tick-boxes on a todo list until the Big Day when all that effort suddenly bears its fruit.
Think about installing blinds: 80% of the effort is to get the fixings in place. At this time, there’s no shade being provided by the blind, and all you can see is a pile of brackets screwed to the wall.
Be encouraged: This moment in time, when you have completed 80% of the work, is huge. Before now, every percentage of effort resulted in just 0.25% of result. From now on, every percentage of effort will result in an average of 4% of result. So it’s worth celebrating.
And if it’s worth celebrating, it’s worth naming. Therefore, let me present the story of a software development team, making a game. The story goes (you can read it at Tales of the Rampant Coyote) that the development team spent much effort (80%) just to get to the point where a triangle was rendered on a monitor. Those not on the team just saw a black triangle. They couldn’t understand how the many months of development resulted in something so simple. Even more, they couldn’t understand why the development team were so happy. But we know, right? 80% of the effort. That triangle was the 20% of result. After finally getting the triangle to render, the rest of the development was easy. As they say “It’s all downhill from here”.
So I propose that we take this story as a great example of the 80/20 rule in action and use the Black Triangle as the name for that point at which you have ‘broken the camel’s back’.
What Black Triangles can you celebrate this week? When you find one, savor it and celebrate it. Even if nobody else understands.
