Succession plan
A succession plan is the documented set of candidates, readiness assessments, and development actions for covering a specific critical role.
A succession plan is the working document for a single critical role: who the candidates are, how ready each one is, where the gaps lie, and what development would close them. Together, the plans across an organization form its overall succession strategy.
A plan is only useful if it stays current. Treating succession as a living view that updates as people grow and move — rather than a slide deck refreshed once a year — is what separates real readiness from a paper exercise.
A complete plan for one role contains: the role's success profile (weighted, observable criteria), the candidate slate scored against that profile with dated evidence, a readiness window per candidate, development actions with owners and deadlines, and a named owner for the plan itself. Remove any one of those and a predictable failure mode appears in its place.
Plans also need provenance. When a readiness call changes from one year to Ready Now, someone will eventually ask who changed it and on what evidence; a plan that can answer survives scrutiny, and a plan that cannot gets quietly replaced by hallway judgment.
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