Real Life Bus-ts Up Your Analogies

My old company used to have the concept of a “Bus Number” — the minimum number of people who could be hit by a bus and still have work proceed as normal. A “Bus Number” of one was bad, meaning there was no backup in case someone was incapacitated, so the goal was for every essential project to have a “Bus Number” of at least three.

We changed the term when someone was actually hit by a bus.

We now have a “Mothership Number” — the number of people who could be brought home by their alien mothership and still have work proceed as normal.

So far, there have been no alien encounters, so we’re putting this down as a win.