Ask HN: Have you ever been on a project where the key person was hit by a bus?

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever been on a project where the key per... by malux85 on Saturday April 06, 2019 @02:12PM (#19592159)

I haven't, but a friend of mine has. He had a single developer who built the whole product, and had all the code on his laptop (as far as I know, nowhere else) and was in a car accident. Months later he's still in a coma. Killed the project, lots of angry customers and damn near killed the business.

There's ways to mitigate this though, he should have been using source control and someone else should have at least had access.

From the business angle, you can also get "key man" insurance, to provide some financial safety net. I am key to 3 startups, and all of them have key-man insurance against me.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever been on a project where the key per... by beatgammit on Saturday April 06, 2019 @05:16PM (#19593053)

At a certain point, you need to make sure everything is redundant. Have two people understand and one component well enough to step in during an emergency (e.g. something breaks whole someone is on vacation).

You can still separate tasks based on who is best at something, but make sure every component has been worked on by multiple people.

A company I worked for had a serious problem with that, so I pushed to get every piece covered by two people. I used "code reviews" for this, where in other to submit a change, someone else familiar with the component had to review it, and they had to understand what the code did and how it did it. We only had a handful of employees, and it was definitely a pain getting it set up, but we were able to survive our first "key man" leaving, followed by a second "key man" somewhat soon after.

If there is anyone on a project that isn't replaceable, you better be okay with the project failing if that person leaves for whatever reason.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever been on a project where the key per... by jklein11 on Saturday April 06, 2019 @04:09PM (#19592743)

It looks like “key man” insurance is basically a life insurance policy. What happens if you have some sort of falling out with one of the founders? Or you decide to start a competing company? Or you decide to go full time with one of the other three startups.

Having a single point of failure in a business is a big problem. Having a single point of failure that isn’t 100% committed to that business sounds insane

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever been on a project where the key per... by shoo on Saturday April 06, 2019 @03:48PM (#19592640)

  > should have been using source control and someone else should have at least had access.

I agree. Leaving aside the question of if anyone else understands the code and could safely make changes, it seems incredibly negligent not to use source control and for the company not to have backups in multiple locations that multiple people have access to. Not rocket science.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever been on a project where the key per... by catdog on Saturday April 06, 2019 @05:31PM (#19593116)

Yep, being dependent on a single person might be unavoidable if you can't afford to hire a backup but not backing up mission critical data is simply incompetence. Doing it at least half way properly does not cost much nor is it difficult.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever been on a project where the key per... by cyanide911 on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @02:19AM (#19612251)

How're you key to 3 startups? Do you work as a consultant?

[ Parent | on HN ]