It's afternoon and Andrea comes back from lunch looking ashen. "Did you hear?" she asks. "Ben was crossing Boylston street and got hit by the #39..." Your whole body goes numb. You put your hands over your face and start quietly sobbing. "I didn't realize you two were so close" she says. "We weren't" you say through your fingers, "but he was the only one who understood our Webpack setup..."
There's a concept in software (and probably elsewhere) called bus factor, the amound of risk your team takes on if one of you were hit by a bus 1 . In other words, would the rest of you have enough context to pick up the work they were responsible for?
I'll let you in on a secret: Paying attention to bus factor can point you to knowledge that's high value within the team, and sometimes even carries over to an entire industry.
Is there work only one team member knows how to do? Does that work also interest you? Ask if you can take some of that work! Are you uncomfortable taking the work on yourself? Ask if you can pair with them on it!
The whole team benefits
Working in silos is a common problem for teams, and actively looking to reduce bus factor is a way to solve it (silos between teams is a common problem too, but probably has a different solution). When you're the one with the specific knowledge it's easy to forget to share it, but chances are you'd be happier if you did - you could spread the workload, bounce ideas off other people, and get help when you're stuck.
Have you ever gotten stuck on a problem and asked for help from your teammates, only to be met with crickets and blank stares? It's a bad feeling, right? You don't know where to turn for help, and in the meantime you're just churning on this problem. This is bus factor experienced firsthand. If nobody on the team has enough context for what you're working on, they won't know how to offer help (and probably don't want to look like an idiot for saying the wrong thing). If you're the one with the blank stare, speak up! Let them know you have a gap in your knowledge and see if they'll help fill it in.
Maybe the team has issues with territorialism, or maybe everyone is just too focused on their own work to pop their head up and see what other folks are doing. This is poison for a team. Teams are more than the sum of the individuals, more collective knowledge means connections will be made and innovation will happen far beyond what an individual can contribute.
When you're collaborating on a problem, sometimes it's as if you and the other person are making connections across your brains 2 . If you've ever been in flow with someone you know this feeling. Your ideas are bouncing back and forth, each of you coming at the problem with your own experiences, the different perspectives opening each other up to new ideas. It's like your neurons have been cooped up with the same roommates and they're stoked to see some new faces 3 .
When you seek out bus factor you can almost manufacture this feeling. If you're not on a toxic team, your teammates will likely be excited to share what they know with you (we nerds love talking about the problems we're working on) and you might see opportunities they missed.
Let's get selfish
Team benefits are great, but what's in it for me??
You gain a new skill, one that's uncommon on your team. Uncommon generally translates to high value. If it's uncommon on your team, it might be uncommon in your company or even your industry, and this is where you really benefit: By seeking out ways to reduce bus factor on your team, you have a potential shortcut to high value skills within your industry.
If the bus factor skill lines up with your area of interest that's a bonus but not a requirement. You might feel like you need to have an interest in something in order to enjoy it, but in my experience it's often be the other way around. By working on something that might look boring from the outside, you can develop an interest in it when you get inside. I can't count the number of things I've looked at from the outside and said "meh" only to be fascinated by them when I start digging in. To tie it back to the above, it might be that most people say "meh," giving you another leg up. Another path into a high value skill!
And if you discover you actually don't have any interest in that particular skill, you can always ask someone if they want to help you reduce bus factor.
In the end, Ben pulled through. He was out for a month, you dug in and got a better understanding of your Webpack config (turns out there's some interesting stuff in there!), and now you keep a lookout both for bus factor and for the #39.
1: This doesn't necessarily actually mean hit by a bus, it could just mean leave the team or be away for an extended period of time, but relates to the amount knowledge sharing that happens on a team.
2: I am not a neuroscientist, and this is not backed up by science.
3: This may or may not be the pandemic talking.
