Forwarded: 80/20 is the new Half-Ass

The Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) is one of the cornerstone characteristics for detecting power laws. It essentially states that a majority (80%) of the outcomes are driven by a minority (20%) of causes. The central idea is that effort and results are not linearly correlated. 80% of your time spent on a project need not translate to 80% of deliverables. For what it’s worth, it could arbitrarily be called the 99/1 rule as there is non-uniformity between the 20% of the effort as well. Thus, such non-linearity should be considered while prioritizing tasks to direct effort effectively.

Moreover, this principle is becoming even more visible in various modern fields - especially software engineering:

• 20% of the product’s functionality is used in 80% of the user scenarios.
• 20% of the bugs solve 80% of the customer support issues.
• 80% of the program’s execution time is spent in 20% of the lines of code.

However, using the Pareto principle is not the best strategy for execution. Paying attention to the details creates a differential advantage while executing. It’s easier to abuse this rule as an excuse to be lazy and half-ass at work. Nobody wants to use a product functionality that works only 80% of the time.

Rules of Engagement Link to heading

• Use Pareto to prioritize among tasks - quick wins, bang for the buck.
• Never use Pareto for execution - that’s being lazy and unethical.
• Don’t spend your time spraying 20% effort all over the place, hoping for 80% results, only to look back and wonder why you never hit 100% on anything.

Aside: Vilfredo Pareto noticed such non-linearity while studying the power-law distribution of household incomes in Italy, hence the name 80/20 was adopted.