A lot of folks use the phrase “bus factor” to illustrate a single point of failure that relies on an individual person. As in, “this project has a bus factor of 1″ – relying mostly on a single individual. This is a real issue on many teams, but this phrasing is an inherently negative framing, because it involves the person being hit by a bus and either dying or being otherwise incapacitated and unable to help on whatever project or effort they were working on.

If you are like me and prefer positive framing over negative framing, use “lottery factor” instead. Ask “What if this person won the lottery tomorrow?”. What if they won so much money they just didn’t show up tomorrow for work or care about it at all? How would that impact this project and team?

Shifts in thinking like this are small, but it avoids your team talking about people randomly or suddenly dying or getting hit by busses and trains anytime someone refers to this single point of failure problem. This also more closely aligns with reality: Teammates and co-workers are more likely to leave the team by choice than anything else. This is what you need to plan for – not some dark fantasy about them dying.

Featured Image Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash