Do You Know Your Project's 'Truck Factor'?

By _Cool Verification

July 24, 2009

Do You Know Your Project's 'Truck Factor'? Yesterday I presented another full-day workshop on verification planning - this time in Denver. During these workshops I discuss two major topics. First, we discuss a framework to help you understand your design. We break up a design into "efficient" subsections, and then search for "operations" that make up each of these subsections. Second, once you have an understanding of your design, we discuss the concept of a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). An FMEA is a cross-functional meeting used to brainstorm possible faults and failures. We use that information to come up with a verification plan.

During the first part of the workshop, I often share stories of projects I've worked on where there was either an unmanageable amount of documentation, or conversely, too little documentation. While sharing these stories I like to introduce the concept of the "Project Truck Factor". What is the Project Truck Factor, you ask? Simply, the PTF is the number of people on your project who could be hit by a truck before your project suffers serious consequences.

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