Bike-shedding effect
Also known as Bikeshedding
Another name for Law of Triviality
The tendency for groups to spend lots of time on small, easy-to-grasp details while rushing through complex, important ones. It is another name for the law of triviality, from an example of a committee that argues about a bike shed and quickly approves a nuclear plant.
Parkinson offered this as satire, and it has had little direct testing, though some decision research finds a similar pattern.
In everyday life
A software team argues for an hour about button colors and approves the database design in five minutes.
Your neighborhood association spends the whole meeting debating what color to paint the mailboxes and approves the major road repair contract in the last two minutes.
Why your mind does this
Simple, clear options are faster to understand and easier to act on, and when time is short that speed matters. Known odds and complete information feel safer because they let us predict what will happen. Preferring the clear option often saves effort that would be wasted on puzzles we can't solve.
Its family, in 30 seconds: Simple & complete
How to spot it
Notice when the group is debating something everyone feels qualified to weigh in on while the hard item sits untouched.
What you can do
Set a strict time limit for small decisions and let one person make the call.
Same family: Simple & complete
SourceWikipedia