What is Succession Planning?

Succession Planning is a key attribute that every company must exhibit at a point in time. This is a strategy that enables the management of a company decide on and develop people that will move up to key posts when some officials leave. This process entails the identification of potential employees with leadership traits that can assume leadership position in a company. 

What is Management Succession Planning?

Management Succession Planning is the process of ensuring that (top-level / important) management positions are filled with suitable skilled and prepared managers through either identifying and developing management talent within the organization or through recruiting suitable candidates from outside the organization.

For example, a CEO succession Plan is a strategy to decide who can replace the CEO once he leaves the company, resigns or retires. This strategy is crucial for maintaining the management and decision-making structure of a company.

How Succession Planning for the CEO is Done

Typical MSP activities are the development of replacement tables, development plans, lists of names along with a succession management strategy, executive profiles, and organizational processes to identify potential, assess readiness, accelerate management development, assign management accountabilities and measure management succession success.

As a risk management system, MSP must be proactive in the sense that it should include planning for both regular succession (retirement, planned promotions) and for eventualities, such as illness, fatalities and resignation.