Your org’s bus factor is the minimum number of people in your org a bus would have to hit to create a critical expertise gap.

If you have critical areas of expertise owned by one person (bus factor == 1), you’re carrying an irresponsible level of risk for your company.

Don’t fool yourself — this is a management problem.  Fix it.

-Donny

note: Your prima donnas will resist efforts to address your org’s bus factor issues.  They’re under the mistaken impression that their value to the organization is measured solely by their individual contribution.  We need to chat about prima donnas in a separate post.

note 2: Not sure who coined the bus factor phrase.  A co-worker heard the phrase at a Java development conference where it was used in a session on project success factors.