Bikeshedding
Etymology
From C. Northcote Parkinson’s "law of triviality," set out in his 1957 book Parkinson’s Law. He imagined a committee that approves a nuclear power plant almost without discussion but argues endlessly over the cost of a bicycle shed for the staff, because everyone understands sheds and no one grasps reactors. Software engineers later shortened the illustration to "bikeshedding," and it now names any drift toward debating the trivial.
noun · /BYKE-shed-ing/
The tendency of a group to spend disproportionate time arguing over trivial, easy-to-grasp details while neglecting the complex, important issues.
What it names
Why meetings can burn an hour on the logo color and rubber-stamp the million-dollar budget — people weigh in where they feel competent, not where it matters.
Example
We spent forty minutes bikeshedding the font on the invite and never once discussed whether the event’s date actually worked.
Related idea
This is a specific case of Parkinson’s law’s author’s wider theme; where Parkinson’s law proper is about work expanding to fill time, bikeshedding is about attention flowing to the trivial.