All glossary terms
Cross-cutting
Bus factor
The number of people who would have to suddenly become unavailable before a project stalls because critical knowledge left with them. A bus factor of one means a single person holds irreplaceable context; raising it requires documentation, pairing, and deliberate knowledge-spreading rather than depending on a hero who never takes a holiday.
A low bus factor is a risk that stays invisible until it triggers — everything works fine right up until the one person who understands the deployment leaves. Raising it is unglamorous, ongoing work: rotating who owns each area, writing runbooks, and pairing on the scary parts so knowledge has more than one home.