The Bus Factor: How Many People Can Disappear Before We Panic?
Written by Tactical Business Marketing Team
Ever heard of a bus-limited company? It’s exactly what it sounds like: if one key person gets hit by a bus (or, let’s be more optimistic and say, “wins the lottery and moves to Fiji”), the whole business screeches to a halt.
This is where the bus factor comes in. It’s a scale of how many people can disappear before everything falls apart. A bus factor of 1? Yikes. That means just one person holds all the knowledge, and if they’re out, so is the business. A bus factor of 5? It’s much better; you’d need to lose five key folks before things get dicey.
The goal? Avoid having a bus number of 1. A good way to build that resilience is by practicing a “pass-the-baton” approach: once someone figures something out, the next time it comes up, someone else should take over. That way, knowledge gets shared, not hoarded.
Most teams don’t take “hit-by-a-bus” planning seriously until someone is unexpectedly out, and it’s chaos. Let’s plan, raise the bus factor, and keep the business rolling, no matter what. (Bonus points if we never actually have to test the theory with a bus.)
Business continuity planning turns tribal knowledge into shared knowledge, raising your bus factor and keeping your business rolling even if someone is out unexpectedly.
Business continuity planning helps avoid a bus factor of 1 by building resilience in your team and processes. Here’s how:
- Knowledge Sharing: BCP encourages the documentation of key processes to prevent critical tasks from being trapped in one person’s head.
- Cross-Training: It identifies single points of failure and promotes training others to cover essential roles.
- Role Coverage Plans: Ensure someone is always prepared to step in by training backup personnel for key positions.
- Process Documentation: Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are created and maintained to ensure that tasks can be followed by anyone, not just the original expert.
- Regular Testing: Drills and simulations test what would happen if someone suddenly became unavailable, exposing gaps before they become crises.
- Tech & Tool Access: Ensures others have access to systems, passwords, and tools: not just the “go-to” person.
Don’t let your bus factor be 1. Contact TBM for help identifying your bus limiting factors.