SIGMA Succession Planning Guide

The essential first step in SIGMA’s succession planning process is to identify critical roles. To identify critical positions, use our Critical Roles Identification Questionnaire. This tool will help you organize key positions and prioritize succession planning based on how important each role is to your organization, and how urgent the need for succession planning is. Begin with your own team, then scale this exercise to multiple teams and levels of the organization.

After you’ve identified your organization’s critical roles, the next stage is to draft success profiles. Success profiles are templates for the skills and abilities needed to succeed in a particular position. Success profiles are similar to job descriptions in that they include position demographics (location, level, direct reports), and role requirements (education required, skills needed, and duties to be aware of). However, a success profile goes above and beyond traditional job descriptions in that it also includes leadership competencies that are needed for success in a role, or will be needed for success in the future. Use our Success Profile™ Template to outline success profiles for each critical role in your organization, and take a look at SIGMA’s LeaderBase if you are interested in accessing ready-made Success Profiles™ for common leadership roles.

Once a success profile has been built for each critical role, you are ready to nominate successors. Begin this process by using the Succession Candidate Nomination Survey to help your succession planning team evaluate the potential of each candidate. Results from the nomination survey are used to populate a draft Succession Bench that groups successors based on their readiness and provides an ‘eye-test’ measure of bench strength for the incumbent’s role. A well-maintained Succession Bench is also a great way to measure the success of your overall succession plan.

To fill out the nomination survey, begin by indicating the name of the candidate and the critical position they are being considered for. For each succession candidate, rate your confidence in their potential performance for this role and provide an estimated timeline for how long the candidate will need before they are ready to take on the position. For these estimates, it’s important to consider input from multiple sources. Consider consulting current role incumbents, senior management and succession advisory teams, leaders, peers, and direct reports of the succession candidate. To add context to your evaluation, take note of any additional information on the potential successor and their skills along with their ratings. Be sure to complete the Succession Nomination Survey for each succession candidate.

Once you’ve completed the survey for each candidate, fill out the Succession Bench Template to organize who your top candidates are for each critical position in your organization. To fill out this form, first indicate incumbent and urgency information for the key position and list succession candidates according to three levels:

• Level A: Succession candidates ready for role in less than 3 years
• Level B: Succession candidates ready for role in 3 to 5 years
• Level C: Potential successors ready for role in more than 5 years

Provide the name and demographics for each succession candidate and record their progress over time. Use the Succession Bench Worksheet to track the overall strength of your succession bench as well as to monitor the success of individual candidates in improving their skills and becoming more qualified candidates over time.

Before you can begin the development process, you will need to assess each succession candidate’s development needs. To do this, fill out the Candidate Profile Template. On this template, you will indicate target position information and report succession candidate demographics, education, and experience. Use your Success Profiles to provide position criteria, and use validated assessments (like SIGMA’s LSP-R) to evaluate the succession candidate on qualities required for the target role. List notable gaps between current candidate skills and those required for the target position in each category, then use this worksheet to identify priorities for candidate growth and talent development opportunities.

After assessing development needs, you can begin the talent development process. To help structure this process we’ve created a Development Actions Form that identifies gaps in talent and allows you to monitor the development progress of succession candidates. Each of your potential successors should have their own Development Actions Form that is reviewed annually to help build their readiness for future roles.

To fill out this template, begin by providing information on the succession candidate and their current role in the organization. List all the positions that an individual may be a candidate for. Next, choose the top development areas from the Candidate Profile and rank the candidate’s development opportunities based on two criteria:

1. What are the largest gaps between role requirements and the succession candidate’s abilities?
2. What are the most important or frequently used skills of the role?

Work with the succession candidate to fill out their Development Actions Form and mutually decide which areas of talent development to focus on in the short, medium, and long-term. After you’ve selected top development areas, decide on specific talent development activities. Make sure you work together with each succession candidate to find relevant and accessible development opportunities that they are interested in. Try to provide a range of activities that will ensure the candidate receives well-rounded training, and use this worksheet to track progress and completion.

Measuring success is an often overlooked, but very important part of every succession plan because it allows you to track and communicate year-over-year progress. Set a calendar reminder to review, compare, and communicate progress every six months (at minimum). Even if you only track one metric, get in the habit of recording it, attaching a dollar value where possible, and conveying that value to stakeholders. Use the Talent Progress Scorecard to review the outcomes of your succession program across a variety of indicators, including money saved, delays prevented, and improvements to existing HR processes. These indicators will help you communicate success to senior leadership, succession candidates, and the organization as a whole.