The Bus Factor of Your Tech Vision Should not be 1
Why it's crucial for CTOs and engineering leaders to assess and mitigate the bus factor in their tech strategies, ensuring their vision withstands transitions and secures company-wide buy-in.
CTOs and engineering leaders often face situations where the team disproportionately depends on a few people.
We commonly talk about the bus factor1 of a team or project to identify how brittle and fragile it is. A bus factor of 1 means that the team or project is heavily dependent on a single specific person.
That's a high-risk situation. If that person leaves—hopefully not because they're hit by a literal bus or other vehicles—your project will be jeopardized.
Addressing such situations proactively is common enough for a CTO or an Engineering Leader to consider it routine work.
It is surprising, though, to observe how often CTOs forget to assess and address the bus factor of their tech vision and strategy.
CTO Leaves: U-turn on the tech strategy
Have you ever been in a situation where the CTO leaves the company, and shortly thereafter, you observe a significant swing or even a U-turn in the company's technical strategy?
I'm not talking about minor reorgs or adjustments—those are normal and to be expected. I'm referring to situations in which the organization gradually and then suddenly deviates from the original strategy.
Key projects are put on hold or completely stopped.
Entire teams are dissolved.
Specific terminology is stigmatized as it's associated with the previous administration.
We might consider this normal in politics, as most political debates are more about proving our opponents wrong than doing anything good ourselves.
But why is this happening in the world of technology strategies?
Some companies are more political than others, and some suffer more from power struggles than others. It would be tempting to attribute such swings to the powers-that-be finding a new configuration, taking up the space left available by the exiting CTO.
Though this might be true in some isolated cases, I find that explanation usually simplistic and rather irresponsible.
I believe that - regardless of the company culture and environment - when this happens, it is essentially the responsibility of the exiting CTO.
If their vision and strategy didn't survive their move to a new company, they missed an essential part of their job.
Why that happens
There are two main reasons for a CTO to leave their company: either they have decided to move on to something else, or they have been invited to leave, i.e., fired.
In both cases, If the vision and strategy of the parting CTO don't survive more than a few weeks or months after the change, the main reason boils down to something embarrassingly simple: they didn't secure enough buy-in from the rest of the organization.
This should sound obvious in those cases where the CTO is removed from their position against their will. You would expect that the CEO and a large part of the organization would not be happy with the company's technical direction and results. It's reasonable to expect that the CEO will want things to be done differently in the future.
It is much more surprising when the CTO leaves on their terms and even more so when the announcement is received with a storm of praise and “we’re going to miss you”-style appreciation.
To make things more complicated, many companies, even those who pride themselves on taking transparency seriously, tend to mess up the message. Out of respect for the person leaving, a company might present a layoff as a voluntary decision, employing vaguely favorable terms such as they have decided to pursue new challenges.
The question of where to draw the boundaries between transparency and confidentiality in such cases is complex, multifaceted, and highly context-dependent. We're not going to address it here.
I'm just mentioning it because when executives leave a company, there is usually a tiny group of people who know the true story of what happened and plenty of people who can only speculate on what the official message meant.
When a significant change of direction follows the exit, more people will be inclined to believe that the CTO was fired, regardless of how this had been communicated. When facing ambiguity, it's in our nature to try to make sense of reality and decide what we want to believe.
You might not care at all about what people think of you after you leave. I do. And for a straightforward reason.
I don't need external validation to feel good about myself.
I need people and companies to appreciate my work, which will inevitably open up new opportunities for me.
Your work and what you leave behind when you go says a lot about you as a professional.
Part of your job is to ensure the company is set up to operate well even after you leave it. Period.
Two types of common root causes
In my observations, CTOs that fail to build a strong buy-in around their vision and strategy broadly fall into two categories: the charismatic leader afraid of nothing or the quiet nerd who speaks a language nobody else understands.
The charismatic leader often faces obstacles with the same grace a bulldozer plows through a pile of junk. They might talk about the importance of teamwork, but they tend to rely more on their individual strengths. Teamwork is good… for others.
Discussions in the executive room are frequently heated, and differences are often resolved by fatigue rather than persuasion. These types of CTOs might be admired by a specific part of the organization, those who secretly wish they had the same courage and determination.
They also build up many enemies, especially in the executive room.
It becomes a game of the strongest voice rather than the most influential. Once that strong voice is removed from the room, few arguments remain to carry on the original vision and strategy.
The quiet nerd tends to be more likable. Their reserved nature will not earn them enemies, but it will not earn them allies either. They are usually more comfortable speaking in technical terms than in business terms. As such, they'll be more inclined to spend time with their own team as opposed to engaging with executive peers and other functions.
They will often do a reasonably good job delivering on short-term business needs. As long as they keep delivering on the urgent side, nobody will bother them on all the other side quests they're pursuing. These side quests will often be approved by the CEO, but more as a sign of trust to the CTO as a person - thanks to their ability to deliver - than a consequence of them deeply understanding and buying into the strategy.
The rest of the executive team will dismiss these initiatives as an agreement between the CEO and the CTO and happily avoid spending time and energy understanding and forming an opinion about what is happening.
Everybody is happy until they aren't.
When the CTO leaves, their agreement with the CEO ceases to exist, opening the door to more people looking into the black box to determine whether the company should be doing this.
As the main, or rather unique, sponsor of those initiatives has left the scene, the rest of the organization might lack the conviction or understanding to make the call to continue down the same path.
We generally don't like to do something we don't fully understand.
This will naturally push critical parts of the organization to diverge from the original strategy, as it's never been theirs.
Reduce the risk of this happening to you
If you're a CTO, ask yourself the following question:
How confident are you that your company will keep following the key principles of your tech vision and strategy if you were to leave it today?
Of course, you should expect changes and adjustments, especially around execution. But do you think the main principles are sufficiently rooted in the organization?
If not, here are a few things you should start doing sooner rather than later:
Ask your CEO to explain the company's tech vision and strategy to you. It means they don't understand it well enough if they cannot. It's your job to make sure they do. Spend time with them until they can clearly articulate the vision and strategy and explain how they support the company's overall business strategy.
Do the same with all the members of the executive team. Yes, all of them. Even that person in HR or Finance that you really don't like that much. You should focus on them more than anyone else. Face the most vigorous opponents, hear their views, and ensure they understand yours.
Do the same with your direct reports. If they are unable to articulate the fundamental principles of the vision and strategy with you, they won't do an excellent job at it with their respective teams. And they will do an even poorer job when the CEO or the new CTO asks them for support once you have left.
Identify a successor early on. Groom them to be able to take on from you at any moment. Spend a lot of time building alignment between their views and yours. A strong successor you've worked with very closely is likelier to carry on the metaphorical flag long after you've decided to enjoy the rest of your life on a sunny beach.
Test your successor in production. Ensure they are entirely in charge of the technical department when you are off sick or on holiday. Do take holidays. Long breaks are best. Allow yourself those four weeks to visit a remote part of the world and give your second-in-command full power while you're away. Upon your return, you'll have plenty of time to address any issue requiring you to work on re-alignment with your successor.
You can do more, but if you don't know where to begin, start at the top of the list and work your way through every point.
I firmly believe our responsibility as CTOs is to ensure that the technical vision and strategy we set for our companies will outlive us.
Unfortunately, that is often not the case.
The reason for that often boils down to our failure to build buy-in around the organization's vision and strategy.
You can get away with it while still holding the fort, but the reality will become evident when you step out the door.
There are things you can do to reduce the risk of that happening. Do them.
I'll see you next week for another article.
In the meantime, you can check out the offer I announced last week. I still have a handful of slots available for free mentoring sessions between now and the end of June.
The details are at the bottom of last week's article.
For a reference on the Bus Factor term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor