A particular interpretation of Parkinson’s Law states that: Demand rises to meet supply. This is true in many scenarios and one such scenario is the world of IT and information systems.

Many times information system providers are presented with a set of functional requirements that the client or his consultant determine as “all that the client requires”. Many times this is close to the truth except for the element of time. What is enough for today, may not be enough for tomorrow. A system defined with today’s requirements in mind is not future proof. Any consultant/analyst worth his salt would try to anticipate the functional requirements of a couple of years ahead. However the future is very hard to anticipate.

As a rule of thumb, parkinson’s law should be considered when defining the requirements of an Information System especially when the investment is going to be sizeable and for the longer term. Demand for features will rise to meet the supply of features. It’s better and more cost effective to err on the “I’ll take that” rather than on the “I’ll skip that”. If the feature is good and you can afford it, take it. Today or tomorrow the organisation will surely scale up to use the additional features if they are there. While if you don’t take it right from the start, and then a couple of years down the line, you end up needing it; it’s probable that either you won’t get it or if you get it the cost of implementing it disjointly would be higher that if you had ordered it right from the start.

But then it all depends on the software! When choosing an Information System provider always balance the functional requirements you’re getting today together with the ability to request additional features, at affordable prices, tomorrow.

More information on a scalable Information System>>

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