The Dangers of the Bus Factor in Agile Teams | Aliona Zapanovici

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Summary

Episode Title: The Dangers of the Bus Factor in Agile Teams | Aliona Zapanovici
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Aliona Zapanovici
Release Date: November 26, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte engages in a deep conversation with Aliona Zapanovici, an experienced Agile Coach and Scrum Master. The discussion centers around a critical anti-pattern in agile teams known as the "Bus Factor" and explores strategies to mitigate its dangers.

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Inspiring Literature for Scrum Masters

Before delving into team dynamics, Vasco and Aliona discuss the influential books that have shaped Aliona's approach to Scrum Mastery.

• "Scrum Master" by Geoff Watts: Although Aliona hasn't read it yet, she acknowledges its importance and plans to integrate it into her learning journey.

• "The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time" by Jeff Sutherland: This book played a pivotal role in Aliona's early career, helping her understand the foundational principles of Scrum beyond mere theory. She states, "I didn't fully grasp the whys behind the framework. This book really helped me understand why there is no formal authority in Scrum..." (00:44).

• "Start with Why" by Simon Sinek: Encouraging self-discovery, Aliona emphasizes the necessity for Scrum Masters to understand their motivations. She remarks, "It's impossible to coach or help others if you are still struggling to understand yourself." (02:30).

• "Drive" by Daniel Pink: This book shifted her perspective on motivation from extrinsic to intrinsic factors, highlighting the depth of true motivation. Aliona notes, "What really motivates me is much deeper." (02:34).

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Understanding the Bus Factor

The central theme of the episode is the "Bus Factor," a term used to describe the risk associated with having critical knowledge or responsibilities concentrated in a few team members.

• Definition and Example: Aliona explains, "The bus factor is when too much knowledge or responsibility is concentrated in just a few key people." (04:23). She shares a real-world scenario involving a team of 13-14 members where a select few were consistently assigned high-quality tasks, leading to dependency and vulnerabilities.

• Consequences: The over-reliance on key individuals resulted in significant bottlenecks, especially during unforeseen events like the COVID-19 pandemic, where sick leaves and vacations exacerbated the problem. Aliona observes, "The team's reliance on these few people was a major vulnerability." (05:37). Additionally, these key members experienced burnout, demotivation, and a reluctance to share knowledge due to fear of redundancy.

• Emotional Impact: The concentrated responsibility led to feelings of loneliness and fear among the key team members. Aliona articulates, "Maybe I can lose my job." (07:13), highlighting the psychological toll of the Bus Factor.

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Mitigating the Bus Factor Risks

Aliona and Vasco discuss actionable strategies to address and prevent the Bus Factor anti-pattern within agile teams.

• Encouraging Knowledge Sharing: Aliona emphasizes the importance of creating an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing responsibilities. She states, "Encouraging knowledge sharing and giving everyone on the team opportunities to grow not only protects against situations like this, but also keeps people engaged and motivated." (08:19).

• Leading by Example: Drawing from her personal experience, Aliona shares how mentoring others has been instrumental in fostering a collaborative team culture. "I lead by example. I show them that, well, actually this is great to be able to share the burden with someone else..." (08:33).

• Utilizing Skills Matrix: Both Aliona and Vasco advocate for the use of a skills matrix to visualize team capabilities and identify areas for growth. Aliona adds, "We started to use the skill matrix to visualize the path one can take to grow..." (11:08). This tool helps teams recognize skill gaps and promotes balanced responsibility distribution.

• Knowledge Sharing Sessions: Organizing regular sessions where team members discuss their roles and expertise can demystify tasks and reduce dependency on specific individuals. Aliona mentions, "Sharing the knowledge in, let's say, share sessions or in working together in collaboration." (12:01).

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Key Insights and Takeaways

• Self-Awareness for Scrum Masters: Understanding personal motivations is crucial for effectively leading and inspiring teams. Scrum Masters must first comprehend their drivers to aid others effectively.

• Proactive Risk Management: Identifying and addressing high Bus Factor situations early can prevent team bottlenecks and burnout.

• Fostering a Collaborative Culture: Building a team environment that values shared knowledge and collective responsibility enhances resilience and adaptability.

• Continuous Learning and Development: Encouraging ongoing skill development ensures that team members are versatile and capable of handling diverse tasks.

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Conclusion

The episode underscores the importance of addressing the Bus Factor to maintain healthy, motivated, and efficient agile teams. By fostering a culture of knowledge sharing, utilizing tools like skills matrices, and promoting continuous personal and professional development, Scrum Masters can mitigate the risks associated with concentrated responsibilities. Aliona’s insights provide valuable guidance for Scrum Masters aiming to enhance team dynamics and sustain long-term success.

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Notable Quotes:

• "It's impossible to coach or help others if you are still struggling to understand yourself." – Aliona Zapanovici (02:30)
• "The team's reliance on these few people was a major vulnerability." – Aliona Zapanovici (05:37)
• "Encouraging knowledge sharing... keeps people engaged and motivated." – Aliona Zapanovici (08:19)

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Stay Tuned: In upcoming episodes, Vasco explores broader topics beyond team dynamics, including leading change and insights from Agile thought leaders. Subscribe to the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast on Stitcher or iTunes to stay updated and enhance your Scrum Mastery journey.

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Transcript

[Vasco Duart]

Hi, I'm your host, Vasco Duart. Welcome to the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast where we share tips and tricks from Scrum Masters around the world. Every day we bring you inspiring answers to important questions that all Scrum Masters face day after day. Hello, everybody. Welcome to our team. Tuesday this week with Alena Zapanovic. Hey, Alena. Welcome back.

[Alena Zapanovic]

Hi. Hi, Vasco.

[Vasco Duart]

So, Alena, on Tuesdays we talk about teams, of course, but before we dive into that, share with us what was the book that most inspired you in your role as a Scrum Master?

[Alena Zapanovic]

It's difficult to answer with selecting just one, if I may. Well, there is one book that I still haven't read, but it's the Scrum Master by Geoff Watts. But I did take the online training and it's definitely a must read for any Scrum Master and it will be my next purchase. But when it comes to my own journey, my first book was, and it truly influenced me was the Art of Doing Twice the Work and Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland. It was that time when I first started working as a Scrum Master and I leaned heavily on the theoretical side. I didn't fully grasp the whys. Why is behind the framework. And this book really helped me understand why there is no formal authority in Scrum, why the team decision making is so important, and why hierarchies don't work in an agile environment. And from here I realized I need to take a step back and educate myself. Not just about the framework and theory, but about my own motivations and mindset. That's when I turned to start with why by Simon Sinek. And it encouraged me to find my own why. And that was crucial to understand how to lead others. And I have one more.

[Vasco Duart]

Oh, that's already three. Very good, very good. Go ahead, go ahead.

[Alena Zapanovic]

This is an important one. Drive by Daniel Pink. I remember I. I remember being asked once to write down what motivates me at work. And in my list I mentioned mostly extrinsic motivators. I thought it was like this, that it was like recognition or rewards. And this book helped me realize how wrong I was. What really motivates me is much deeper. And I believe it's impossible to coach or help others if you are still struggling to understand yourself. So for Scrum Masters, I'd say reading these books isn't just about improving your role, it's about understanding yourself first. And once you know what drives you, you can better lead and inspire others.

[Vasco Duart]

Absolutely. And it starts with us understanding our motivations. I think That's a very important aspect of that realization. So thank you for sharing that, Alyona. But of course we also want to understand what motivates teams and we want to help them find that motivation. Sometimes we just can't. And it might be not because of us, but because of something else, like the context, the people within the team, whatever that might be. Today's Tuesday, so we want to explore one of those stories, a story of a team. Tell us a little bit about the context so that you know the size and so on, so that we know more or less what is that context for the team, and then walk us through those small little steps that kind of came up over time and eventually created a big problem for the team.

[Alena Zapanovic]

That's a very good one. One self destructive pattern I've seen in teams and not in only one team is what we often call the bus factor. It's when too much knowledge or responsibility is concentrated in just a few key people. In one of the teams I've worked with, this was exactly the case. The same people were always assigned the same same type of tasks. They were the best at what they did, always delivering high quality and working much faster than anyone else. It became a kind of legacy behavior.

[Vasco Duart]

How big was the team that you are describing there?

[Alena Zapanovic]

Under 15, 13, 14.

[Vasco Duart]

Okay, so pretty big anyway, right? Like, it wasn't that there was just one person that could do something. It was just that somehow it had kind of developed to be that way. Was it that the person was. Or the people who were getting always the same type of work, were they kind of just naturally volunteering for that or were they being assigned that work? How was it?

[Alena Zapanovic]

Well, no one questioned this. It was always done this way. And it was like easiest and fastest way to select who will do the job. The one who knows best. And it happened during a long period of time. But in this case, Covid happened and people got sick. People went on vacation. We need vacation, we need some time off. And in these cases, all of a sudden, huge bottlenecks created. No one else in the team had close to the same level expertise. And it became clear that the team's reliance on these few people was a major vulnerability. On top of that, these key team members were suffering too. They were bored, having done the same time of work for so long. And they had lost motivation because they were no new challenges yet. They also feared sharing their knowledge.

[Vasco Duart]

They were probably the. They probably also felt quite alone, right? Or lonely, I guess is the word, because they felt that, okay, everybody depends on me. So I really need to kind of step up and take this work, but I really don't want to because it's always the same work. And that kind of creates a very strong loneliness because it's almost like, okay, we are kind of alone with this responsibility, right?

[Alena Zapanovic]

Yes. And still it never was other way. It was always the same pattern. And at one, maybe at first it would be easier, but in time it became. It made them feel like they worried if they, If I teach you, if I show you my work how to do it, maybe later I won't be needed anymore. Maybe I can lose my job.

[Vasco Duart]

And that fear can be a huge motivator as well, by the way.

[Alena Zapanovic]

Yes. So in this case, this was a lose, lose situation. The team was stuck, their progress slowed, and those few people, they were not growing and not feeling fulfilled. So encouraging knowledge sharing and giving everyone on the team opportunities to grow not only protects against situations like this, but also keeps people engaged and motivated.

[Vasco Duart]

When you think about teams that may be stuck in this kind of pattern, how do you help them these days to feel motivated to share knowledge and to actually build that into the way they work?

[Alena Zapanovic]

Well, this, starting with understanding my motivators, helped me a lot because I am now a mentor and I invest a lot of my efforts in mentoring others. And I understand how it helps me, how it motivates me, how it makes me feel, how it makes me value this time. And I think I, in this case, I lead by example. I show them that, well, actually this is great to be able to share the burden with someone else, to seek for help, to say maybe that you are not so great at something you don't know at all.

[Vasco Duart]

Absolutely. One thing that you said actually is worth repeating, it's not just sharing the knowledge, you're also sharing the burden. Because when it's only one person that can do the work, they will feel trapped. And it's not like it's a bad thing at the start. It just becomes a bad thing over time. And it may be easy to fall into that pattern because it just slowly starts creeping up on you. And then when you notice it, you can't go on vacation, you're always on call and everybody looks at you when the team is late because you are the bottleneck.

[Alena Zapanovic]

Yes. And at the start it looks like, well, it will be the best choice, it will be faster, it will be higher quality. But it's not investing in time. In time, it becomes. It slows down the team.

[Vasco Duart]

Yeah. And it is a big anti pattern. So one of the Things that I've done in the past, for example, is to help teams understand where they are lacking capacity, like whatever skill set that might be. And I use something like the skills matrix to help the team understand who is and what skills do we need and how many people have that kind of skills, how many people want to learn those skills. Because that is an important aspect of the conversation around the skill matrix. But, but how about you? How do you these days help teams understand that they are either getting stuck into that skill silo anti pattern or help them avoid to get stuck in that?

[Alena Zapanovic]

We also started to use the skill matrix to visualize the path one can take to grow, to develop the part with the mentoring. Not everyone is good at mentoring. Not everyone likes to mentor. And that is okay, that's perfectly fine. But they, they like to, to speak about their job, speak about what they, they, they truly like what they are doing. So sharing the knowledge in, let's say ishare sessions or in working together in collaboration, we do this.

[Vasco Duart]

Absolutely. And that's a very practical way to do it, right? Like or visualize the path one can take through the skills matrix, organize knowledge sharing sessions and recognize that not everybody wants to be a mentor, but they all can talk about what they do and what they like to do for others. Aljana, thank you very much for sharing that story.

[Alena Zapanovic]

Thank you.

[Vasco Duart]

Tuesday is team day here on the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast, but tomorrow we talk about something that goes beyond the work we do with the teams. We will talk about how to lead change and what our guests have learned from leading and participating in change programs during their career. See you tomorrow. We really hope you liked our show. And if you did, why not rate this podcast on Stitcher or itunes. Share this podcast and let other Scrum Masters know about this valuable resource for their work. Remember that sharing is caring.