What is Bus Factor?
The bus factor is a risk assessment metric that measures how vulnerable a project or organization is to failure if key people were suddenly unavailable. The term refers to the hypothetical scenario of how many team members could be “hit by a bus” before the project grinds to a halt. A low bus factor means that too much critical knowledge or responsibility is concentrated in too few individuals, while a high bus factor indicates that expertise is well-distributed across the team.
Though widely used in software development, the bus factor applies to any industry or project where specialized knowledge is essential. It highlights risks tied to dependency on specific individuals and encourages practices like documentation, cross-training, and knowledge sharing. By improving the bus factor, organizations build resilience, reduce bottlenecks, and ensure that projects can continue smoothly even if a key contributor becomes unavailable.
