Bus factor in a company is the risk that information and capabilities are not shared among team members. If a person has a high bus factor, they have a significant amount of information and capabilities that aren’t shared among the rest of the team.
Hypothesis on the performance of a program manager
The performance of a program manager is positively correlated with the bus factor of their technical information and negatively correlated with the bus factor of their project management information.
- Their structuring and planning of projects is likely to be more effective if they have deep technical context. Having this technical context is correlated with having a high bus factor on their technical knowledge.
- Their project management information will be siloed if they have a poor ability to express and share project plans
Why I find program management interesting
I think that program managers are in a unique position in that they have the combined technical depth, business context, and breadth across domains to be in a position to more clearly see high-impact problems and solutions in a company.