Parkinson’s law* states that in any administrative department not actively at war, the staff will grow by about 6% per year, regardless of need.

a. Parkinson applied his law to the size of the British Colonial Office. He noted that the Colonial Office had 1,139 staff members in 1947. How many staff members did the law predict for the year 1954? (The actual number was 1,661.)

b. Based on Parkinson’s law, how long should it take for a staff to double in size?