How to build a succession plan for critical roles

Not every role needs succession planning. Focus on: revenue-generating positions, specialized expertise positions, key leadership roles, roles with long ramp-up time, single points of failure. Criticality factors: difficulty to replace, knowledge concentration, customer relationships, team dependencies. Pragmatic view: you can't succession plan everything. Prioritize where talent loss creates real business risk. Some roles are replaceable quickly; others aren't.

Can't develop successor without knowing what success looks like. For critical roles, define: core responsibilities and outcomes, key relationships and stakeholders, critical knowledge and skills, success metrics, unwritten but essential aspects. Documentation clarifies: what new person must master, gaps in current succession candidates, whether role should evolve. Undocumented tribal knowledge is succession planning's enemy. Writing forces clarity.

Internal promotion beats external hiring when possible: faster onboarding, cultural fit known, demonstrates growth opportunities, retains institutional knowledge. For each critical role, identify: ready now (could step in tomorrow), ready in 1 year (needs specific development), ready in 2-3 years (high potential, longer development). Multiple candidates per role creates: redundancy if first choice leaves, healthy competition, bench depth. Don't rely on single heir apparent.

Identify gaps between candidate capabilities and role requirements. Development activities: stretch assignments in target domain, mentoring from current role holder, rotations to build breadth, formal training for skill gaps, shadowing and exposure. Timeline: skill development needed, experience to gain, readiness checkpoints. Development plan makes implicit succession explicit and creates mutual accountability. Hoping people develop isn't plan. Intentional development is.

Succession planning isn't just slow, planned transitions. Prepare for: sudden resignation, illness, termination, promotion opportunity elsewhere. Emergency succession plan: interim leader (who steps in immediately), communication plan (internal and external), knowledge transfer protocol, decision authorities. Hope you never need it; grateful when you do. Emergency preparedness prevents: organizational chaos, customer disruption, competitor poaching during vulnerability. Planning reduces panic.

Business changes; succession plans must too. Quarterly or annually review: Are critical roles still critical? Have candidates progressed as expected? Do development plans need adjustment? Have new high-potentials emerged? Are external candidates needed? Succession planning is living document, not one-time exercise. Stale plans worse than no plans—create false confidence. Current succession plan enables confident departures and agile promotions.