Replacement planning
Replacement planning is the practice of naming emergency stand-ins for key roles — a continuity measure that identifies who covers a seat, without the development engine of full succession planning.
Replacement planning answers one narrow question: if this person disappeared tomorrow, who covers the seat this week? It produces a list of emergency stand-ins, usually the incumbent's deputy or manager, chosen for availability rather than long-term fit.
It is the floor, not the goal. Replacement planning keeps the lights on; succession planning builds people who can actually grow into the role. Organizations need both, and confusing the two is how a company ends up believing it has a bench when it has a phone tree.
The two practices differ on every axis that matters: time horizon (days versus years), selection criteria (availability versus assessed readiness), development (none versus gap-closing assignments), and output (a name versus a pipeline). A replacement list goes stale without consequence; a succession plan compounds.
The honest sequence for a young program is to build the replacement list first — it takes a week and covers the emergency case — then graduate the most critical roles into full succession plans with scored candidates and development. Emergency coverage buys the time that real development needs.
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