Team Management Lesson Learned: No Single Point of Failure

This series started as a presentation for my colleagues at Zenitech, and the third part became the most memorable lesson for quite a few of them because it presented an important fact: there will always be that one person you absolutely cannot lose.

That person is the one who can do any task: executing production releases, resolving incidents, helping you explain technical solutions to the client…really, they can do anything. And you probably go to that person often, right? You know you’ll get what you want, and you will get it fast. It is a priceless resource, especially in situations where you need to act fast.

Having this kind of colleagues and team members is great, and of course, you should appreciate and make the best use of their skills. However, just as you do risk management in your projects, you should look at your teams from that angle as well.

Just think about it:

What if this person goes on holiday?

You manage, but some things are waiting for them to come back, isn’t it?

What if they get reassigned to another team?

‘We will do some knowledge transfer, and they are not going far, we can still consult with them’, you may think to yourself.

What if they decide to leave the organisation?

‘We would be in trouble’, you might say, shaking off the shivers.

Sounds familiar? It does for me at least.

By going back to the same person every time, you, as a manager, are creating a single point of failure in your team. I believe every manager/Scrum Master should be mindful about this at all times and actively work to protect oneself and their team from that kind of situation.

Here are some examples of things you can do with/for your team to mitigate the risks:

• Consciously choose to give the task to someone new, even if it takes longer to solve
• Pair people up for incident resolution or production releases, and make it clear for the ‘new’ person that you want them to be able to resolve it on their own in the future
• Address people by names during team discussions and make sure everyone gives their opinion (this way they’ll know they should HAVE an opinion)
• Repeat — constantly revisit the topic asking yourself “can this team possibly suffer from the bus factor?”
• Be creative! Once you start thinking about this, you will come up with techniques that work best for you and your team.

Suppose anyone asks (and they definitely will!) ‘Why do I have to do this if he can do it faster?’ or ‘Why do we have to do it together if it is a one-man job?’ — yes, in that case, it is worth it to spend time and do something for the sake of having multiple people be able to do the same task. You’ll sleep better, your team of experts will too. Nobody on your team should be afraid to go on holiday. 🙂