Avoid Bus Factors in the Team

Original Photo by Hannah Busing

What is Bus Factor?

If you’re someone who has been working in the Software Development industry for quite a while, you must know someone in the team who, if suddenly hit by a bus (in other words, leaving the team), the team’s progress will be hampered because there is no one else in the team who can replace his role due to many technical things that only he and God know.

That person is what is called the “Bus Factor”.

Of course, we agree that actually this Bus Factor is usually a genius. Although generally we are grateful for the existence of these “limited edition” geniuses. The existence of these “limited edition” geniuses can make the team difficult in certain situations.

Eliminating Bus Factor

If there is a Bus Factor in your team, then you should immediately eliminate it. Eliminating it here does not mean removing that person from the team, but making him not a Bus Factor anymore.

One of the things you can do is ask the Bus Factor to conduct a sharing session or mentoring to individuals who are less familiar with his domain for at least 30 minutes a day.

You also need to make sure that the Bus Factor does not do his job alone. Put the Bus Factor in a project with other team members so that other team members also do what the Bus Factor usually does alone. If there are team members who are having difficulty, then the Bus Factor will be there to help them.

Avoiding Bus Factor

Eliminating the Bus Factor is not a task that can be done immediately. We also need to prevent this Bus Factor from reappearing. You can try the ways that I apply in my workplace as follows:

1. Pairing

Make sure to avoid doing something alone when a task becomes very complex. I usually hold a special meeting to work on a task together. What I like about pairing is that it can also improve bonding in the team.

2. Code-Review

Applying a code-review culture is very effective because it requires the reviewer to understand the code written by others. Code-review done via meeting can also be a more effective option because it involves a conversation with each other.

3. Job Desc Rotation

Actively rotate the job desc among team members. At my workplace, I split some job desc and distribute it to team members. Every month, the job desc is rotated to other team members. This makes all team members have the same knowledge and can back up each other.

This kind of rotation will encourage team members to get out of their comfort zone and learn new things.

4. Documentation

Make documentation as part of the daily work. With documentation, everyone can do what is usually done by one person by reading the documentation.

Conclusion

Noticing and avoiding the Bus Factor is one of the most important things in a team, especially if we are a Leader, then our ability to prevent it as early as possible is very crucial.

One thing I like about preventing this Bus Factor is that it makes all team members grow because they learn new things from their teammates. In addition, learning new things is also a fun activity and avoids team members from boring routines.

I hope my writing here is useful.

Thank you for reading 👋