2. 5 steps to identifying critical roles and managing succession
Follow these 5 steps to identify your critical roles and develop succession plans or pools to create a pipeline of talent for each role:
Identify your critical roles and individuals. You may also need to consider core individuals who perform their role well, or hold knowledge that would have a high organisational impact if lost or would be difficult to replace.
Use the Critical Role Tool (slides 3-4) to prioritise the most critical roles by considering the size of impact and the difficulty of filling the role as well as the scarcity of the skill or knowledge required for the role.
Create your succession plans or succession pools, using the Succession Management Tools (slides 5-8). Decide which template is more appropriate for your particular needs. The succession plan may be more relevant if you are looking at a shorter-term replacement for a particular role, whereas the succession pool template may facilitate an assessment of the health of your pipeline for talent segments and therefore longer-term development or deployment strategies.
Follow the guiding principles for succession management that are included in the succession management tool to ensure you are making informed and considered decisions.
Embed succession management in your talent management cycle, ensuring plans are completed as a consequence of the talent review process. These plans should be reviewed on a regular basis, at least once every six months as critical roles and talent segments evolve, taking into account the organisational context and changes in the workforce.  

3. Critical Role Tool
The Critical Role Tool enables you to identify the critical roles in your organisation that you need to ensure you have a strong succession pipeline for. Critical roles are posts which have certain characteristics which mean that, if vacant have a high impact on the department or organisation and are difficult to fill. Core individuals are individuals who perform their role well, or hold knowledge, the loss of which would have a high organisational impact or would be difficult to replace.
These roles are typically identified based on criteria such as:
Direct impact on the performance of the organisation and/or functional are
Critical for the delivery of organisational strategy
Significant effect on revenue and/or external relationships (e.g. partnerships)
Key skills and competencies that may be rare or difficult to acquire in the market
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4. Organisation impact of vacancy Difficulty of filling vacancy
Critical Role Tool
Organisation impact of vacancy
High
Medium
Low
Easy
Hard
Difficulty of filling vacancy
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5. Succession Management Tools
The Succession Management Tools facilitate the process of succession planning and provide some guiding principles as well as two templates, for succession plans or succession pools.
The succession plan template is for a specific role that requires unique experience and competence in potential successors. There are likely to be fewer potential successors as the skill and experience set is likely to be scarce.
The succession pool template, is for critical roles that can be grouped together into ‘like roles’ as the experience and competencies required for succession have commonality and therefore allows for a more flexible pipeline.
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6. Succession Management Tools: Principles
When creating succession plans or succession pools, there are a few guiding principles that can facilitate you in the decision-making process:
Take a broad perspective 1
Consider people’s personal career aspirations 2
Use your 9 box grid insights 3
Question how diverse your plans are 4
Be aware of duplication 5
Focus on developing those on the plan and address any gaps 6
The best succession plans consider candidates from all areas of the organisation
Consider what people want to do – there is no point in putting people on a plan if they would not be interested in taking the role in future!
Ensure that you consider all your talent that have been identified as high potential, not just those that are best known to you or ‘front of mind’
Challenge yourself as to whether there are people that have been discounted because they don’t fit the mould
If individuals appear repeatedly on succession plans, they can only realistically fill one role. Ensure that you are not over-reliant on a small pool of people
Ensure that individuals on the plan have relevant development plans. Where there are gaps on the plan, look at casting the net wide internally or externally to fill these
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7. Succession Management Tools: Succession Plan
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Succession Management Tools: Succession Plan
Role A
Role B
Incumbent
Emergency Successor
Ready within 12 months
Ready within 36 months
Long term
Role C
Role D
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8. Succession Management Tools: Succession Pool
ROLE POOL
NUMBER OF ROLES IN POOL
READY WITHIN 12 MONTHS
READY WITHIN 36 MONTHS
LONG-TERM SUCCESSORS
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