TIL the Bus Factor

POSTED ON: Feb 07, 2022

TAGS: programming idioms

Bus factor
The bus factor of a project is the number equal to the number of team members who, if run over by a bus, would put the project in jeopardy. If a project overly relies on the contributions or knowledge of one person, then you could say that the project’s bus factor is one.

This is why I'm aggressively about documentation and training.

At some point - you will be gone. Either by choice or by force. (Maybe it's that murder bus?)

Help your team out by documenting.

A bonus one from the reddit post I found this originally on:

Death March - poorly scoped project, likely doomed from the start to crush all contributers with an impossible schedule/requirements/cost/etc.

REFERENCE:
(Software Engineering Idioms You Should Know)[https://endaphelan.me/posts/software-idioms-you-should-know/#bus-factor]

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