Subnostr

The Pareto Principle is considered a universal principle. 20% of the people do 80% of the work, always and everywhere.

That's why "adding more people" usually has little (or even a negative) effect on overall productivity.

Be very careful with the Pareto principle because it says many more things than this. For example someone quoting the Pareto principle could argue that the exact same 20% percent of the people that you are talking about, is causing the 80% of the problems and prevent progress. Let's say this... You have 20% of the population that is oligarchs or oligarch related. Are they the 20% of the people that do the work that has to be done or are they those 20% that causes 80% of the problems and prevent the necessary work to be done?

Also that's not exactly the main reason why more people might have negative effect on a work. Max Weber had said many stupid things but he was right on that case. This is already a long post, search for what max weber said about this subject

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Discussion

Laeserin 1y ago

Conflict is concentrated within the 20% because everyone else is inactive.

But projects definitely don't need hordes of inactive people that quietly drain resources or act like speedbumps.

nami 1y ago

Yes that could be one case. A usual one. There are others too. Always keep some percentage for the other cases. Afterall the Pareto principle teaches that also...

Laeserin 1y ago

I see this effect EVERYWHERE.

Anytime there is work to be done, whether it is paid or unpaid (actually doesn't seem to matter, as much as you would expect it to), there are the same people there. That's why we all know each other. We keep seeing each other while working.

And other people complain about it always being the same people, but when you offer to share the work, they're like... nah.