Business Succession Planning: Developing and Maintaining a Succession Plan

Change is a hallmark of today’s business world. In particular, our workforce is constantly changing – people come and go, and move into new roles within the company. Succession planning can help you make the most of that change by ensuring that when someone leaves, there is someone new to take their place. This two-days course will help teach the basics about creating and maintaining a succession plan.

• Demonstrate an understanding of the value of succession planning for successful businesses.
• Demonstrate expertise with the key elements of a succession plan.
• Create and discuss aspects of a succession plan.
• Discuss the elements of a succession plan in terms of roles, responsibility, function, scope, and evaluation.

We will spend the first part of the day getting to know other participants and discussing what will take place during the workshop. Students will also have an opportunity to identify their personal learning objectives.

To begin, participants will explore the differences between succession planning and replacement hiring, including some of the advantages of succession planning.

This session introduces the SUCCESS acronym, which defines the succession plan process that the remainder of the course will focus on.

Next, participants will use information gathered in their pre-assignment to identify the critical people in their organization.

This session will give participants some tools to identify internal and external successors. We will also look at a sample risk assessment.

During this session, participants will start creating risk assessments, individualized engagement plans, and succession plan profiles.

This session will help participants identify ways to look within their own organizations and determine what the critical positions are.

There are six key ingredients to being able to forecast what people you will need when. Participants will explore each item in small groups. Participants will also learn about the role of coaching and mentoring.

Next, participants will learn about using Appreciative Inquiry and Leadership Quality Assessments to develop a succession plan.

During this session, participants will explore the idea of phased implementation. We will also look at using technology to facilitate putting the plan into action.

This session will look at the importance of evaluation. Participants will also work on modifying an evaluation checklist to suit their organization’s needs.

To wrap up the day, participants will identify their next steps and participate in a review exercise.

At the end of the course, students will have an opportunity to ask questions and fill out an action plan.