Bus Count
As a software consultant, one piece of advice I often give to companies developing software is that they have to increase their bus count. The bus count is the number of people on the team who need to be run over by a bus in order for the project to fail or be incur a serious cost or delay. If you have a bus count of one, then only one person knows how some critical portion of the system works and is able to maintain it. If that one person is hit by a bus, you have a serious problem dealing with that portion of the system.
The best solution for a lot bus count is pair programming because it distributes the knowledge of the system to several people (especially with the XP policy that the pairs keep switching and working on different parts of the system).
I often use the term "bus count" but I've forgotten where I heard it from. I googled and found one reference to it on Craig Murphy's blog, so I know that other people have heard the term. It seems to me like the kind of term that came out of Extreme Programming, but I can't quite place it. Does anyone know where the term came from? Am I nuts and I'm the only one who uses it? I don't think so.
Comments
Re: [David Buck - Blog] Bus Count
[ anonymous] June 10, 2005 8:01:51.114
Comment by anonymous
In XP the name TruckNumber ist used for that concept
Truck Number
[ David Buck] June 10, 2005 8:31:34.724
Comment by David Buck
Thinking back, I do remember using the term Truck Number for that concept. I think the original term was Truck Number and then later I heard Bus Count. I guess it depends whether you'd rather be hit by a truck or by a bus :-). Thanks.