Moving Beyond Management Succession Planning to Technical Succession Planning Speaker: William J. Rothwell, Ph.D., SPHR Professor of Human Resource Development at Penn State University and President of Rothwell & Associates, Inc.

Opening Quotation There is more to succession planning than just replacing pairs of hands. You also need to consider how to pass on institutional memory and how to pass on valuable, proprietary technical knowledge. That requires technical succession planning. -- William J. Rothwell

Overview Say succession planning and most managers think of preparing a talent pipeline for future promotion. That dramatizes the preoccupation with preparing people for vertical advancement. But what about the technical knowledge that is contained in the heads of your organization's most valuable technical experts (HiPros)? What about the "know how" of managers on why the organization did what it did in the past and how to get results by talking to the right people in the right ways?

Overview These questions focus around technical succession planning, which is the process of capturing, distilling and preserving lessons learned from the past and lessons gained from experience. How does it differ from traditional management succession planning? Social relationship succession planning? Based on research and experience in working with many types of organizations for the past 25 years, William will share practical approaches to capture, preserve and communicate tacit knowledge.

Objectives Participants will: Hear distinctions between management and technical succession planning Compare their own organizational practices to best practices Learn how to address the most common problems and mistakes made in implementing technical succession planning programs

William J. Rothwell, Ph.D., SPHR Professor of Human Resource Development at Penn State University President of Rothwell and Associates, Inc. (www.rothwell-associates.com) Author of “Effective Succession Planning” and coauthor of “Career planning and succession management” (www.amazon.com )

A Quick Poll How many of you feel that: Your organization already has an effective way to capture and pass on institutional memory? Your organization could stand to improve its efforts in passing on what has been learned in the past? Your organization is not at all prepared to deal with the loss of institutional memory as waves of retirement lead to the organization “forgetting” much of what has been learned from experience?

Management succession planning Technical succession planning? Definitions What do these terms mean to you: Management succession planning Technical succession planning? Social network succession planning?

Why Should We Care? The Leadership Imperative When large numbers of talented, experienced people retire (or are otherwise lost), the organization loses more than mere “warm bodies” to do the work There is value to the human capital of the organization—experience does have value Case in point: some experts contend that the U.S. has not gone to the moon in recent years because “we have forgotten how”

Why HR Practitioners Must Care Productivity and competitive advantage means more than just well-meaning, or even talented, people to do the work Competitive advantage in some industries stems from building on technical knowledge gained in the past For example: how is the next generation of cell phone created? Isn’t it first necessary what has been learned from the past? Corporate culture is defined as “taken for granted assumptions about what is right and wrong or good and bad” Where does that culture come from? EXPERIENCE!

Best Practices in Management Succession Planning Step 1: Make the commitment Step 7: Evaluate the program Step 2: Assess present work/people requirements Step 6: Close developmental gaps Step 3: Evaluate current performance Step 5: Assess potential Step 4: Determine future work/people requirements Source: Rothwell, W. (2005). Effective succession planning. (3rd ed.). New York: Amacom.

Best Practices in Technical Succession Planning Step 1: Make the commitment Step 8: Continuously assessing knowledge gaps, evaluating the action strategies taken to address them, and the results achieved Step 2: Assess what work processes are key to the organization’s mission Step 7: Considering how to maintain and transmit specialized knowledge and who needs it to ensure the efficient and effective continuity of operations? Step 3: Clarify who possesses special knowledge about those processes Step 4: Identify who is at risk of leaving the organization Step 6: Capturing and distilling the specialized knowledge about those work processes that is possessed by those possessing specialized knowledge Step 5: Clarifying how key work processes are performed by those with special knowledge Source: Rothwell, W., and Poduch, S. (2004). Introducing technical (not managerial) succession planning. Public Personnel Management, 33(4), 405-420.

Key Differences Between Management and Technical Succession Planning Management succession planning focuses on vertical advancement; technical succession planning focuses on preserving institutional memory on the horizontal continuum Management succession planning focuses on people; technical succession planning focuses on knowledge about work process Technical succession is about more than just preserving institutional memory; rather, it also includes passing on specialized, proprietary technical knowledge about how to get things done and what was learned from the past

Comparing Your Organization to Best Practice Examine the checklist Rate your organization against the models

Ways to Capture and Pass on the Lessons from the Past Strategy 1: Job shadowing Strategy 2: Communities of practice Strategy 3: Process documentation Strategy 4: Critical incident interviews/questionnaires Strategy 5: Expert systems Strategy 6: Electronic Performance Support Systems Source: Rothwell, W. (2004). Knowledge transfer: 12 strategies for succession management. IPMA-HR News, pp. 10-12.

Ways to Capture and Pass on the Lessons from the Past Strategy 7: Job aids Strategy 8: Storyboards Strategy 9: Mentoring programs Strategy 10: Storytelling Strategy 11: Information exchanges Strategy 12: Best practice studies or meetings Source: Rothwell, W. (2004). Knowledge transfer: 12 strategies for succession management. IPMA-HR News, pp. 10-12.

Most Common Mistakes Not considering knowledge transfer at all Using expensive software rather than “going with the flow” of how people learn Focusing only on the past rather than focusing on useful, specialized and tacit knowledge

Conclusions The need for technical succession planning will not “go away” Organization leaders are slowly becoming aware of this problem The need will increase in the future The time to act is NOW

Q&A

Contact William Rothwell – Rothwell & Associates wjr9@psu.edu (814) 234-6888 www.rothwell-associates.com