Ask HN: What is the bus factor at your company? - guessmyname
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mey
Disturbingly high for the size of the company. I can point to several
locations where one person is pivotal to core business functions and causes
issues when they go on vacation.

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luiscarloscb
Wouldn't that be a disturbingly low bus factor?

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mey
Apparently yes, wasn't sure the scale :)

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bbcbasic
I have a feeling people will be biased into thinking their bus factor is lower
than it really is.

Day to day experience may make it seem like if John or Jane got hit by a bus,
nothing can happen.

In reality businesses adapt and there are probably other people that can step
in. Once they must, they will.

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flukus
I'm sure the business could adapt to our low bus factor, but it would take
months at least of nothing really happening, there is really only one person
that knows some of the critical codebases and they're so spaghettified that
I'm not sure if anyone else could learn it.

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TurboHaskal
3 and increasing as new technical team lead keeps optimising for short term
results and his own career development. I am not voicing much criticism as
part of me wants him to fail even if it ends up hurting the product but I
suspect he will leave us before the shit hits the fan.

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yolesaber
Zero. Nothing works anyway.

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Spoom
Probably 2 or higher at this point. We've made some real strides recently in
getting everything documented somewhere.

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nicky0
The what now?

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CodeWriter23
Right? We called it the Mack Truck Factor back in the day.

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steverb
We call it the lottery factor to try and put a more positive spin on it.

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jfrisby
I've worked at maybe two companies with a bus factor > 1\. Maybe.

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chris_7
1

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eastindex
1, its always Jane or James.

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lm2s
2

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jpindar
One.

