I like this idea. I would add one tip though, use a group password safe, rather than contacting person X. As a sysadmin we have passwords all over the place (root, network, wifi, desktop, remote sites, etc, etc). There are five people on our team, and we use Password Safe (windows) [1] and/or KeePassX (linux/mac) [2] to manage lots of passwords. You do not have to contact person X, for a password, if the are away for some reason, just check the safe.